Sloan Canyon, Mater East continue football rivalry in 4A region final

Everyone who pays attention to high school football in Southern Nevada already knew what the Class 4A Southern Region championship game matchup would be before the season started.

Now, it’s coming to fruition in what is being billed as the game of the year for NIAA state championship-eligible teams.

No. 1-seeded Mater East (8-3) hosts No. 2 Sloan Canyon (8-2) at 6 p.m. Friday for the 4A Southern Region title.

The winner will advance to play the winner of Reno High and Galena (which play in the 4A Northern Region final Friday) for the 4A state championship at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 21 at McQueen High School in Reno.

“It’s always a great game when we play them,” Sloan Canyon coach Nate Oishi said. “It’s a lot of excitement around the city, so that’s pretty cool.”

There are plenty of parallels between the budding charter school rivals. Both are led by former UNLV football players — Tim Hough at Mater East and Oishi —with Oishi’s staff being made up of mostly of his former Rebels teammates and Hough coaching with his former UNLV and Desert Pines High teammates.

The two charter schools have been on a rapid rise as two of the top programs in the Las Vegas Valley, which has been magnified this year after the departure of 30 5A/4A CCSD football programs to independent status. That cleared the path for Mater East and Sloan Canyon to meet for the 4A region final.

“Mater’s a great football team and we’re excited to compete,” Oishi said. “That’s what we want. Regional championship game, we want to compete against a good team and we’re excited for this week.”

Regular season forfeit

The regular-season meeting between went down to the wire. Mater East held a 27-3 lead in the third quarter and held off a Sloan Canyon rally with a stop on the final play to hold on to a 27-19 win on Sept. 17.

But on Oct. 12, Mater East had to forfeit the win due to an “administrative oversight” error. In an email sent to the Review-Journal that day, Mater East athletic administrator Shawn Dickson said the forfeit was the result of an athlete who was cleared to play that was inadvertently removed from the game day roster against Sloan Canyon.

The statement read: “A student-athlete who had been cleared for participation was inadvertently omitted from the official game roster. Although the student-athlete had been cleared, the failure to ensure that the athlete was properly listed on the official roster was an administrative oversight on our part.

“This led to the forfeiture of the game with Sloan Canyon. We have worked with the NIAA in regards to this matter.”

Hough said in an interview with the Sin City Sports Talk Podcast that he was “hurt” by the decision and claimed Sloan Canyon reported the incident.

“Sloan Canyon went and told, which I feel like out of anything in Vegas, that hurt me the most because I played with 80 percent of their staff at UNLV,” Hough said in the interview. “… So for you to be my teammate and you to go did that, we be at baby showers together. We hoop together. We brothers. Well, I thought we was brothers. We not no more. Like, I can’t mess with that.

“We was way tighter and it was way bigger than that than just football. The rivalry from Sloan Canyon and Mater didn’t come between the players. It came because the coaches know each other.”

Asked about Hough’s comments, Oishi, who was UNLV teammates with Hough for three seasons, said the situation is between Mater East and the NIAA.

“(The forfeit) was between Mater and the NIAA,” said Oishi, who is also Sloan Canyon’s athletic director. “All that was made aware to me was I received an email from the Mater administration, just explaining an administrative effort that was made, resulting in a forfeit. That was really all the information I got on the situation.”

Attempts to reach Hough for comment for the story were unsuccessful.

One day at a time

Oishi added that he told his players to remain off social media with all the anticipation and attention on the Mater East-Sloan Canyon rematch.

“We’re not worried about outside perspective or what people are saying about us,” Oishi said. “We’re just worried about (our) brotherhood and worrying about each other and worry about getting better every day.

“The boys have done a great job staying off social media and reading about themselves and things like that.”

Now the focus for Sloan Canyon is to avenge its on-field setback against Mater East and try to get back to the 4A state title game for a second straight year. The Pirates were undefeated before losing to McQueen for the 4A title at Allegiant Stadium in 2025.

“We’re excited. We prepared a lot for this moment, especially last year coming up short losing to McQueen,” Sloan Canyon senior defensive back Arie McQuaig IV said. “The team is prepared and we’re very excited to play in the region championship. It helped us a lot learning what we need to fix and prepare and how to attack this new season.”

The mild-mannered Oishi has stressed a one-day-at-a-time approach to his team, which has been instrumental in Sloan Canyon’s rapid rise and could be pivotal in a high-intensity game against Mater East.

“We want to embrace the energy,” senior Sloan Canyon wide receiver Brandon Quaglio said. “We want to bring the energy, but at the same time, it’s another game to go out there and another opportunity to perform.

“It’s always exciting to play those guys. We’re always looking forward to it. We love the competitiveness and we’re going to embrace it.”

Contact Alex Wright at [email protected]. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.