After fighting off cancer, Reedley High football player confronts a new health scare

Reedley High senior Malachi Rios, even with heavy thoughts on his mind, had a big performance Friday morning in the Pirates’ intrasquad scrimmage.

He finished with two touchdowns on offense, then had three tackles for a loss on defense.

“He’s our best player on both sides of the ball,” Pirates coach Tony Gates said. “It’s unbelievable. He was lights out playing today.”

Rios battled cancer in 2022, with doctors finding a lump and removing it. Later, Valley Children’s Healthcare discovered he had stage four testicular cancer, with small tumors near the lungs and another near the stomach.

Declared to be in remission and seemingly doing fine, Rios now faces new danger. Two days before that great fall practice performance, mom Jessica had posted on GoFundMe that he had CT scans and a blood test that showed there may be new lung tumors.

She wrote that he will need to have a port put in to begin intensive chemo.

“There are some oblong shaped tumors that are similar to a fungus of some sort,” she wrote. “The oncologist said very low probability that’s all it is. But she’s testing to rule that out.

“The next step at this time is that we will be waiting for the tumor markers to come back. An elevation in these markers will confirm the re-occurrence.”

Rios had been cleared for spring ball and was with the team since.

Now, Gates said, Rios awaits an MRI to diagnose what doctors found. He said he’s been praying and keeping his fingers crossed that the lymph nodes didn’t grow, but said Rios wanted to play this season and hold off on any additional surgery until after the games are played.

The lymph nodes didn’t grow but doctors detected something near his lungs that needs to be checked out.

“They’re not sure what it is yet,” he said. “Unfortunately, they think, some more tumors. So that’s where we’re at. We’ve been in a whirlwind in the last four days.”

Rios started his varsity tenure on the scout defensive team, but eventually landed a starting linebacker spot for Reedley.

Gates said the team and community is in wait-and-see mode.

“We’re hopeful it’s not cancer in the lungs,” he said. “Hopefully it’s some type of fungus.”