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Demons need to eliminate penalties and turnovers, move the ball, and be aggressive on defense, in order to survive
By ARNIE LESHIN, Santa Fe Today
Apparently, Santa Teresa didn’t resemble a football program that has had but one winning season when it rolled over visiting Cobre last Friday night.
Last year, the Desert Warriors went 2-8 for yet another losing season over 13 years. The only time they had a winning one was the 2007 7-4 campaign.
But they opened this season by ambushing the Indians, 28-7, behind an aggressive defense and an offense led by senior quarterback Dominick Dozal, who goes 5-foot-7 and weighs 165, can pass and run equally well, and is the spark who ignites the offense.
That’s what faces Santa Fe High as it comes off a 48-0 loss to visiting St. Michael’s last Friday night. This is the second game of its independent schedule, but it doesn’t look all that winnable, and will have to get used to the earlier kickoff time of 6 p.m.
Santa Teresa has size both way, with no less than 18 players over 200 pounds. It starts with 5-8, 335 junior offensive tackle, Jacob Avila, and winds its way to several others tipping the scale at 200. Not only that, but there’s 5-11, 285 two-way lineman Hunter Huerta, and 6-foot, 240 junior Ismael Luna who does the punting and goes both ways on the line.
As for Dozal, he ran for two touchdowns versus Cobre, passed for 8-of-17 attempts that included a TD. On the ground, the team rushed 44 times for 314 yards, and Dozal had 144 of these yards while passing for 155.
Defense? Well, the Indians gained only 55 yards on 28 carries and were 8-of-14 through the air, and that brought their touchdown in the second quarter. Junior Jesus Sanchez came up with seven tackles for Santa Teresa and sophomore Nick Arroyo, all of 6-1, 240 pounds, had a pair of sacks.
Meanwhile, the Desert Warriors scored in each quarter, seven in the first, six in the second, eight in the third, and seven in the fourth.
It is Shae Viera’s ninth year as head coach.
The Demons have a new head coach in Andrew Martinez. Last week, he was on the opposite sideline of a St. Michael’s team where he was an assistant coach for 17 years. In his first game in that role, he saw his team play a solid scoreless opening quarter, but fell behind 14-0 at halftime.
His team doesn’t have the size that Santa Teresa does, but it did play some aggressive defense versus the Horsemen. The first quarter, in fact, was all even, and Santa Fe High even took the opening kickoff to the St. Michael’s four, where it stalled on fourth down.
It was a good start that didn’t finish. Senior quarterback Lopez didn’t panic in his first start after sitting out last season, but he was often rushed and forced to throw, which brought interceptions. The Demons also accumulated 16 penalties and that led to TDS for the Horsemen, and they also had turnovers that helped St. Michael’s.
This time, they must clean up their game, have less infractions, less mistakes, and rely on the home crowd support.
But this is a long trip for Santa Teresa and it would no doubt like to depart at 2-0. And for Santa Fe High, it becomes a key early contest because it would not be happy with a 0-2 start.
