Grizzlies take out frustration on Desert Pines

Forced to wait an extra week to begin its football season, Spring Valley took out its frustration on Desert Pines.

The Grizzlies, whose scheduled opener last week was canceled because the officials didn’t show up, scored on their opening drive Friday night, cruised to a 20-0 lead and held on for a 20-14 triumph over the late-charging Jaguars.

“Last week, when no officials showed up, we were pretty upset, so we wanted to come out here and get all our anger out,” said Nate Holloway, Spring Valley’s 6-foot-4-inch, 320-pound senior lineman, who had two sacks and kicked two extra points. “We played as a team; we’ve just got to finish next time.”

Desert Pines scored two touchdowns in less than a minute late in the fourth quarter to trim Spring Valley’s lead to 20-14, then recovered an onside kick with 1:51 to play. But the swarming Grizzlies forced the Jaguars to turn the ball over on downs and then ran out the clock.

“I think I aged about 10 years at the end,” Spring Valley coach Kelly Murphy said. “We played hard and we played fast. We just didn’t finish it.”

Coming off a 28-0 loss to Silverado in its opener, Desert Pines (0-2) coughed up the ball on its second play from scrimmage when Derrick Shaw fumbled a pitchout from Dalton Leilua. Aareon Smith-Allen recovered for Spring Valley on the Jaguars’ 21-yard line.

Facing fourth-and-9 at the 20, Grizzlies quarterback Anton Stallworth (6-for-7, 77 yards) fired a 19-yard strike to Jeff Fajardo for a first down, setting up a 1-yard scoring run by Jacques Adams.

“We came out pretty tough,” Stallworth said. “Toward the end we kind of lost it. We needed to shut the door and that’s what we’ll work on next week.”

The Grizzlies scored on their first drive of the second half for a 13-0 lead. Stallworth picked up a first down on fourth-and-2 from the 3, then Tom Krysztof ran in from the 1.

Spring Valley made it 20-0 with 6:13 to remaining when Keenan Sanders took a reverse handoff from Fajardo on a punt return and sprinted 75 yards untouched down the sideline.

The Jaguars came back with their first points of the season. Facing fourth-and-9 at the Grizzlies’ 25, Leilua scrambled out of trouble before finding Anthony Ruiz for a 24-yard completion to the 1. Berry Keorris then plunged into the end zone with 2:52 left.

Spring Valley fumbled the ensuing kickoff and Schaquawn Williams recovered for Desert Pines on the Grizzlies’ 10. Two plays later Leilua found Ruiz in the far corner of the end zone for Desert Pines’ second touchdown in 57 seconds, and Shaw ran in the two-point conversion to make it 20-14.