LAS VEGAS -- After losing to Mesquite Virgin Valley at Overton on the final day of the regular season, Moapa Valley football coach Brent Lewis said his Pirates had the athletes capable of beating the defending Nevada Class 3-A champion Bulldogs.

He was right.

Moapa Valley defeated Virgin Valley 35-14 Saturday at Clark High School in Las Vegas for the 3-A crown. Virgin Valley had won the Southern Nevada Class 3-A League regular-season title with that win in October.

"There's no feeling like it, watching the ball hit the ground on that last play," said senior wide receiver Bobby Vallet.

"Just amazing, we didn't know what to do - just throw your hands up. It's over. All this hard work and you did it," Lewis said, as he stood on the 50-yard line afterwards amidst a happy group of players, fans, and coaches.

The Pirates did it in a game that was closer than the final score suggests. The contest looked to be going down to the wire until midway through the fourth quarter.

Neither team scored in the first quarter as both ground each others' running games to a halt.

So junior quarterback Max Jenkins went to the air and completed two touchdown passes in a two-minute span - one to senior Joseph Rebman for 71-yards and the other to Vallet for 44-yards.

But senior quarterback Doug Hafen answered Jenkins with an 81-yard touchdown bomb of his own to junior wide receiver Jonathan Gleave for the final score of the half. Hafen then ran in a 15-yard touchdown midway through the third to tie it at 14-14.

Moapa answered on the first play of the fourth quarter, as Jenkins connected with senior Bobby Valet for a 31-yard touchdown, making the score 21-14.

The Bulldogs were driving and faced third and two at the Pirate 25 with seven minutes remaining. Hafen kept the ball for a one-yard gain, but a flag flew. The Bulldogs were called for holding, which created third and 16 instead of fourth and one.

Hafen took the snap, looked to pass, scrambled, and forced a bullet down the middle that was picked off by Vallet and returned to the Bulldog 31. Three plays later, junior running back Brad Weiss ran in for another score to put the game out of reach.

"It's a funny game, you know, it all comes down to a penalty here and momentum there," said Bulldog coach Kirk Hafen.

Virgin Valley didn't get close again, and Weiss spread the icing with a two-yard touchdown carry late in the fourth.

The keyword here is "carry."

In the second half, the Pirates finally found a way to run the ball against the green and white.

Weiss had 20 carries for 68 yards and senior running back Steven Jensen ran six times for 37 yards. Most of that yardage came in the final 24 minutes.

"It took us a couple of quarters, but we were able to run the football," Lewis said. "We just made the decision at halftime that we need to run the football."

He added, "We thought that had been our strength all year and we couldn't go away from that just because they shut us down."

"It felt good," Weiss said of finally gaining some running yards against the Bulldogs. "The first half, they made adjustments and we couldn't run the ball. Second half, we straight-up just pounded it and wore them down."

The Pirates also pounded their way to their first state title in seven years by matching the Bulldogs' physicality and slowing down their running attack.

"We were more physical this time," Lewis said. "Way more physical. They wore us down last time, I thought we wore them down this time."

Hafen agreed. "They seemed to be a little more quick up front," he said. "We weren't able to move them as well. They just outmanned us out front and did a great job. He had his team ready to go."