Dave Maxwell
Tabor Maxwell hands off to Ike Taylor with David Ingram as the lead blocker in the Panthers win over Round Mountain last week. PVHS hosts Beatty tonight in the first round of the Division IV state playoffs.
Nobody on the team talks about it, but the fans do.
Pahranagat Valley finished the league season last Friday with a 58-20 win over visiting Round Mountain, completing their eighth straight unbeaten regular season. The win gives PVHS 90 consecutive victories since 2008, the longest active winning streak in the nation.
Junior quarterback Tabor Maxwell threw three touchdown passes and ran for another. He completed 10 of 16 passes for 186 yards, including touchdown passes of 55 and 26 yards to Shawn Wadsworth and 20 yards to Cody Williams. Maxwell also had a 4-yard TD run in the first quarter.
Junior David Ingram ran for 86 yards and three touchdowns on 16 carries for the Panthers (9-0, 7-0 Division IV Southern). He scored on runs of 4, 5 and 62 yards.
Wadsworth had six catches for 131 yards for Pahranagat Valley, which also got a touchdown run from injured senior center Mateo Linares.
Round Mountain finished the year 2-7, 1-6.
Coach Ken Higbee gave a lot of credit to Round Mountain and the big, athletic, strong, physical players they have. “That’s one of the top two or three teams athletically in the league,” he said.
Higbee was also calling the plays with offensive coordinator Brian Higbee out of town for the weekend. “I tried to keep it simple,” he said. “We wanted to challenge our line up front to see if we could run the ball. There have been teams that have put eight kids in the box and we haven’t been able to run the ball, and I wanted to challenge our kids. And we showed that we could run it.”
Having Ingram carry 16 times (most in his career), Higbee said was because “Round Mountain was in a four-man front, so we’d trap them and run David,” either inside or outside.
Ingram said, “I had really good blocks and without them I wouldn’t get anywhere. It’s all about those blocks.”
With the 90th win, the Panthers are now tied for fourth place with Morrison, Oklahoma, 11-man (1989-1995). The national 8-man team record is 92 by Shattuck, Oklahoma (2003-2009).
The all-time record is 151 by De LaSalle High of Concord, California, 1992-2003.
The Division IV playoffs begin this Friday. In the south, the matchups have Beatty (4-5) at Pahranagat Valley (9-0), Tonopah (7-2) at Spring Mountain (7-2). In the north, also on Friday, it is Virginia City (6-2) at Eureka (8-0) and Carlin (9-1) at Whittell (9-0).
