Nevada high school football: Liberty defeats Foothill

On a night when the Liberty football team played two quarterbacks and suffered two turnovers in the first half, it was the Patriots’ special teams that came up with a much-needed score.

Leading 16-8 early in the third quarter, Maximus Paogofie blocked a punt and Aiden Webster grabbed the live ball in the air and raced more than 30 yards for a touchdown.

Liberty never let up in the second half. The Patriots, ranked No. 2 in the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Class 5A rankings, found their rhythm on offense and their defense stood tall as they opened 5A Lake League play with a 50-30 road win at No. 6 Foothill.

“That was huge, it was a tight game right there and Aiden Webster picked it up,” Liberty coach Rich Muraco said. “I don’t know who blocked it, but he did a good job. (Webster) is a great athlete. This year, he’s mostly playing defensive end, but he’ll be a tight end for us too in the future.”

The Patriots (5-1, 1-0 5A Lake League) had six sacks and three tackles for loss. Webster had two sacks and Paogofie recorded a sack and two tackles for loss. Jonathan Ioane added three sacks for the Patriots.

Webster’s special teams score put Liberty ahead 24-8, but Foothill (4-2, 0-1) kept answering every time as sophomore Ryder Dobbs answered with a 5-yard touchdown run on the next drive and a 2-point conversion cut the score to 24-16.

Liberty couldn’t shake Dobbs and the Foothill offense. And after the Patriots extended their lead to 32-16 on a 1-yard Ezra Sanelivi run at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Falcons answered again on a Dobbs 1-yard pass to Braxton Bonnett to trail 32-24 with 9:55 to play.

Anthony Alberro gave what would be the dagger on a 1-yard touchdown run with more than seven minutes to play and Gunnar Massenburg’s 40-yard field goal put the Patriots ahead 43-24.

Dobbs completed 15 of 26 passes for 220 yards and threw three touchdowns, including a 17-yard score to Bonnett late in the fourth quarter. Liberty added another score on a 90-yard kickoff return by Kaden Cadang with under a minute left in the game.

“We try to preach all the time, it’s a team win,” Muraco said. “We’ve had some games this year where the defense played outstanding and the offense kind of struggled and a couple times special teams didn’t play so well. Tonight, we got two special teams touchdowns, the offense did a pretty good job moving the ball once we got into our rhythm, and the defense did OK, (but) credit to Foothill.

“It’s not always perfect, you don’t always have a perfect game in all three phases, but it’s a good team win.”

Liberty played two quarterbacks — juniors Selby Griego and Ramiro Reinaldo — in a planned move. Muraco said the plan was to get Reinaldo more live reps in games where the drives matter, as opposed to blowouts. The coach added Griego is the starter and he’ll “ride the hot hand” when needed.

“I felt like I need to get (Reinaldo) at least a little bit of reps, especially (with) the style of offense we have, where our quarterback’s going to be running the ball,” Muraco said. “There’s a chance he could get dinged up and you want to have your No. 2 ready to go.”

Griego completed 9 of 13 passes for 113 yards with a 29-yard touchdown pass to Kellen Iwamuro in the first quarter, but Griego also threw an interception in the first quarter. Reinaldo completed 5 of 11 passes for 75 yards and had 19 rushing yards.

Liberty got another strong game out of Sanelivi, a three-star junior running back, who rushed for 76 yards and two 1-yard touchdown runs, one in the second quarter and another in the fourth. Iwamuro finished with 87 receiving yards on six catches with a TD, and Cadang had three catches for 53 yards.

Liberty, which will likely be in the top four of the NIAA’s HRM points standings on Monday in the first edition of the rankings, plays at Faith Lutheran at 7 p.m. Friday. Foothill plays at Henderson rival Basic at 7 p.m. Friday in the “Battle for Boulder Highway.”

“Our goal is to get into the Open (Division) playoff and we know that in order to do that, we hold the destiny in our own hands,” Muraco said. “If we win out, we’re going to be one of the final four teams. Preseason, if you were asking me who would be the toughest team in our division, I would have probably guessed Faith (Lutheran).”

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.