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Thursday night, visiting Pojoaque Valley finishes Strong in getting past Santa Fe Indian School
By Arnie Leshin
It was a stormy, deadlocked night at Capital High, at Portales, St. Michael’s offensive woes continued, and at Moriarty, Santa Fe High hung in there despite its losing skein falling to 35.
That was Friday. On Thursday night at Santa Fe Indian School, Pojoaque Valley came back from an early deficit to get past the Braves, 36-23, and even its record a 1-1, while Indian School fell to 0-2. The Elks trailed from the start, but when the deficit was now 23-22, they scored twice in the fourth quarter and held Indian School scoreless.
The Jaguars welcomed Deming, but the weather did not cooperate, and with eight minutes left, the non-district game was called and the final score was 14-14.
Several lightning storms delayed the contest several tifmes, and when they continued to disrupt the teams and the spectators at the start of the fourth quarter, officials called it, and both teams are now 1-1 after winning their openers.
Friday night, the Jags head for Bloomfield in a non-district test, and hopefully the weather will allow the game to finish, with only the mercy-rule
shortening things. Deming scored first in the opening quarter and added the two-pointer. Capital then tallied a touchdown not long after, but was unsuccessful with the PAT.
It stayed a 8-6 at the half, and then the teams traded TDs in the third quarter. When the fourth quarter began, lightening struck again, game called.
St. Michael’s had lost its Saturday afternoon opener when visiting Taos rolled up the score with its offense, and kept the Horsemen stymied with its swamping defense.
And this Friday night, the Tigers were all over Los Alamos in a 47-0 rout.
As for St. Michael’s versus Portales, it failed to move the ball, but the Rams did in scoring 14 points in the first quarter and added another TD in the second for a 21-0 lead. The Horsemen didn’t score until the final quarter and it ended at 21-6. Now they head for Bloomfield for a non-district game Friday night,
Hopefully, they won’t come across another Julian Urioste, the Bloomfield senior quarterback. The versatile Urioste picked up 217 total yards. He rushed for 85 and threw for 132. But in the opener against Albuquerque Hope Christian, he was shut down in a 10-3 overtime loss.
Santa Fe High might be coming close to ending the unwanted losing streak. Against the Pintos, who lost their home opener to West Las Vegas, the Demons lost 20-12, but it could have been worse as Moriarty piled up 310 yards along the ground. It continued running the ball and only 51 plays were passes, both incomplete.
But it was only 7-0 after one quarter and despite the Pintos controlling the game, Santa Fe High reached the end zone after Moriarty punted. Awaiting the kick was Joel Rodriguez and he ran it back 52 yards for the touchdown that trimmed the lead to 7-6 after the Demons failed on the PAT.
But the Pintos got off some long runs, one coming on senior running back Xavier Romero’s 12-yard scoring run after a 50-yard drive. Not long after, Romero increased the margin to 20-6 when he raced for 20-yard TD.
Meanwhile, the Demons offense shut down. In the third quarter, they did drive 47 yards to the Moriarty 28, but a pair of sacks pushed them back and they managed only 25 yards the rest of the way. But freshman quarterback Luc Jaramillo did not quit, and in the final minutes, he hit on 3-of-6 passes after a dreadful span of only completing one of 13 previous throws.
His 23-yard pass to Matthew Maestas did get the ball to the Pinto three. Two plays later, the offenseran it in from the one for its first offensive touchdown of the season the clocked ticked down. Close but not enough, especially when the home team was coming up with big plays along the ground. In one span, it carried the ball for 213 yards.
But Santa Fe High has a real shot to put an end to the dreaded losing streak when it plays at winless Espanola Valley Friday night.
