Tradition gives Las Vegas High advantage over competition

This is part of the journey you'd prefer not to confront, the element that doesn't seem real when you are dominating a football opponent to the point of leading 12-0 in the second quarter while holding an advantage in total yards of 175 to 19.

The most difficult component to overcome. The last rung on a ladder to climb. The final number on a combination to unchain that imposing gate and step into a place of champions.

It's what again kept Del Sol High School locked out Friday night.

Tradition.

It's hardly a new tale. One program knows how to respond to the most adverse situation; the other doesn't. One seizes even the smallest opportunity to create success; the other finds ways to give its away.

One knows how to win such a significant game.

The other is still learning.

Las Vegas has passed into that impressive and daunting role as the team no one can really put away, having won its fifth straight Sunrise Region championship Friday night by rallying past Del Sol, 28-25.

"We obviously wanted to make the jump, but we can't belittle what we have done to this point," said Del Sol coach Preston Goroff, whose team lost to the Wildcats in the Sunrise final last year, 38-8. "But Vegas is a very good football team. We'll have to work our butts off to get where they are and make that jump."

It's an imposing one.

I'm fairly certain Chris Faircloth is the best football coach I have seen who seemingly doesn't own a pair of pants. He has produced consecutive state champions for Las Vegas because his is no longer just a really good team each fall.

It's a program. A belief. A commitment. A swagger. A squad that carries a playoff roster large enough to fill a fleet of yellow school buses.

Del Sol beats most anyone else Friday. The Dragons are big and physical and controlled the game early like a teenager with his little brother in a headlock. They couldn't have hoped for a better start. It was theirs for the taking.

But extremely successful programs need only a crack of an opening to snatch momentum away. The crack this time: A 59-yard kickoff return for Las Vegas following the second Del Sol touchdown, presenting the Wildcats a first down at the Dragons 25 and officially pushing the hosts back onto a set of defensive heels from which they would never completely recover.

"We're probably the slowest-starting team in the world," Faircloth said. "(Del Sol) really came out ready to go. We knew we would have to fight to the end. If we did that, we thought things would work out for us. That's just what we believe."

Sometimes, they even get a little help.

Del Sol is in just its fourth year of playing football and certainly is traveling in the correct direction. But it will remember this game for longer than today and tomorrow and next week.

How couldn't it?

The Dragons were at home. They outgained Las Vegas 387-252 and rushed for 230 yards to 80 for the Wildcats.

But unsightly special teams and the fact its defensive backs couldn't cover much of anyone ultimately eliminated Del Sol.

"It's getting harder to (keep winning)," said Faircloth, whose team will play McQueen in Reno next Saturday in trying to keep alive its hopes for another state title. "Everyone lines up for you. It obviously doesn't get any easier, but we're really happy to have won this one."

This is why it's so hard to knock them off the perch: A kid like Marvin Campbell plays wide receiver as a junior, learns the offense, experiences the ultimate feeling of winning state, shows up for fall camp, gives quarterback a try and is suddenly throwing for 172 yards and a touchdown and running for 45 yards and two more scores in a region final.

This is why: Because when a coach as good as Faircloth is mixed with players as good as Las Vegas annually has and a conviction so strong is shaped from so many big wins, it becomes an incredibly complicated maze to solve.

"Even when we were up 12-0, I knew and our guys understood who we were playing," Goroff said. "We never really felt comfortable about it. Vegas has been there, done that."

You know what that establishes?

Tradition.

The toughest opponent of all.

Ed Graney's column is published Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.