A banged up Trojans football team played their last game of the season against Sierra Vista and lost 42-16.
The team went into the game without receiver Parker Hart. Hart and Devlin Dillon were two of quarterback TJ Milk’s favorite targets. Hart had missed the last two games of the season. He was joined on the sideline by Kevin Daffer, Jake Labarbera and Kelby Lindberg.
Tyler Baumgarten played injured along with Joe Sladek.The bottom line is the team in general learned to play injured due to the small roster, with injuries being part of the game.
During the game, Pahrump scored first with a 72-yard TD pass from TJ Milk to Isaak Holmes for a 6-0 lead. Sierra Vista scored the next two scores with a 7-yard TD run and then a 44-yard run.
Pahrump then scored on a field goal at the end of the second quarter. The Mountain Lions led 14-9 at the half.
In the second half, the Trojans had a hard time containing the Sierra Vista running game as they scored 21 unanswered points before the Trojans scored on an 82-yard kickoff return by Aaron Fuentes to start the fourth.
Sierra Vista then scored one more time in the late fourth quarter to end the game.
Trojans coach Adam Gent said he was proud of his team and said he will continue to work hard to improve football in Pahrump. The Trojans finished seventh out of nine teams with a 3-6 overall record and 2-5 league record.
“I knew coming in, Pahrump had only had a couple of winning seasons in the last 20-30 years,” the coach said. “Joe Clayton finally got the seed of hard work to start growing and I plan to give that plant a lot more water. It’s going to be a lot of hard work, but players are already learning the satisfaction, fun and success it produces. They’re starting to see it translates to success in school and in life. I’ve had a couple of coaches from Vegas reach out to share how impressed they were with our boys this year after graduating so many from last year.”
The coach said it will take time to establish a firm culture of football, but he believes the “future is bright for Trojan football.”
Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com. Follow @vernheepvt on Twitter.