Rodriguez’s big runs help Needles win 2A football state title
Needles senior Gabriel Rodriguez got injured when his football team faced Pershing County in the regular season. Needles lost the game 30-22 on Sept. 6 in a neutral site game at Beatty.
Rodriguez, fully healthy, made an impact when the teams met again for the Class 2A state championship Tuesday at Allegiant Stadium.
Rodriguez had two rushing touchdowns in the fourth quarterback to help Southern Region champion Needles pull away for a 22-12 win over North Region champion Pershing County.
“I go to bed every night dreaming of this moment,” Rodriguez said. “I’m just glad we could finally come out and deliver and do what we had to do. That lit something in me. I wanted to come back and I wanted to get it back.”
Pershing County (11-2) won the 2A state title last year. Needles won its second football state title and first since 2007.
“It’s kind of surreal right now,” Needles coach Thomas DeLeon said. “These guys worked hard all season long. They put in the work. They played together and today it paid off in four quarters of state championship football.”
Needles (10-2) led 8-0 at halftime and held that advantage through the third quarter.
Pershing County got on the board seconds into the fourth quarter when Trenton Rhodes hit Ramon Sanchez with a flea-flicker pass on fourth-and-8 for a 25-yard touchdown. The subsequent 2-point conversion attempt failed, keeping Needles ahead 8-6.
Rodriguez responded by capping a seven-play, 63-yard drive with a 9-yard touchdown run. Needles converted the 2-point conversion attempt on a run to take a 16-6 lead.
Pershing County struck again its next drive on a 2-yard run from Rhodes, cutting its deficit to 16-12 after another failed 2-point try with 3:17 left in the fourth quarter.
Rodriguez then iced the game. He broke off a 49-yard touchdown run on the first play of the next drive. Needles’ defense closed things out from there thanks to two sacks from Anthony Gomez.
“A lot of the season, we were looking forward to this game,” DeLeon said. “We knew that matchup might come. We changed our defense a little bit to get after them early and it showed today.”
Rodriguez finished with 87 rushing yards and added a tackle for loss on defense. Needles quarterback Hudson Smith passed for 82 yards and had a 3-yard rushing touchdown in the second quarter to give his team an 8-0 lead.
“We always come out flat and it’s very big that we didn’t come out flat in this game,” Rodriguez said. “At halftime, we really came out with the energy we wanted to bring it to them. That’s what we did and we delivered.”
Needles, located in California, competes in Nevada because it is geographically isolated from other California schools. Its 18-12 state semifinal win over Battle Mountain on Nov. 15 was played in the rain and on a muddy field. But that wasn’t a problem for Needles at the Raiders’ stadium.
“We were all super psyched to come here and play at Allegiant, but we didn’t get ahead of ourselves,” Rodriguez said. “We didn’t take (anything) for granted. We just wanted to come out and play ball, no matter what field.”
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.
