Perfect opening Friday night for the Santa Fe quartet of high schools

At Santa Fe Indian School, new head coach Bill Moon was able to celebrate his first game mentoring the Braves with a big second half that brought a 38-18 triumph over visiting Cuba.

Capital took to the road and settled in Grants in Joaquim (Wax) Garcia initial

return as a head coach in 20 years, with his Jaguars piecing together an impressive 55-20 victory.

Taos was where St. Michael’s headed, and in head coach Joey Fernandez’ 20th year, his team bounced back from a sloppy first half to dominate the weary Tigers, 30-3.

And at Ivan Head Stadium, head coach Andrew Martinez got his fifth season at Santa Fe High underway by rolling past Robertson, 34-8, after it, too, didn’t play all that well in the first half.

“I’m of course happy with the win,” said Martinez, “but I was not happy with our sloppy first two quarters.”

Can’t blame him. In six first-half drives, his 6A Demons moved the ball into Cardinals’ territory each time, but managed only a pair of touchdowns.

“Bad snap, a penalty, a delay of game, then when we were in a bad position, we missed a block,” Martinez said. “At that point, we just lost that focus, the little edge we had. It was frustrating, and I mean, we all were.”

Enter junior running back Martell Mora. He carried the ball for 180 yards, four times he made it into the end zone, he added an interception and had more than 200 all purpose yards. He was running well early and this offset the miscues his team committed in the early going.

On the opening drive, Mora accounted for 48 yards along the ground, and capped it with a 2-yard dive into the end zone at 7:23 of the quarter, In the second quarter, he scored from 12 yards at 5:14 thanks in part to his own 33-yard punt return to the Robertson 25. At the half, he had 94 rushing yards and two TDs, and as a team, Santa Fe High combined for 67 yards on offense.

Oh, and it was the first the Demons won their opener since 1998.

Said Mora: “We just gotta get over killing ourselves with mistakes. We’ve been doing it for years, and now we’re trying to fix it.”

Mora’s backfield teammate, senior quarterback Luc Jaramillo, who was only 3-for-8 for 26 yards in the first half, connected on three of his four targets, and capped it with a 38-yard roll out to fullback Adam Chavez for a touchdown when Chavez bolted past the Cardinal defender at the 2-yard line.

Martinez claimed that his staff had showed 4th-year starter Jaramillo films showing his open receivers, and he knew that Jaramillo could go through the air, and that Mora could run the ball. And 3A Robertson had no answer.

But the Demons’ defense did. In the first half, they held the visitors to 40 rushing yards, and when the final whistle sounded, the Cards totaled only 91 yards of total offense. They did not reach the home team’s territory until the final seconds of the third quarter.

“Our defense is sound,” said senior linebacker Daniel Wright. “They put in the work.”

But mistakes are going to happen, and from the first half to the second,  everything improved.

Said Martinez: “Now we got to improve from week one to week two. We’re not going to set the world on fire, because we’re not there yet.”

And up to Taos’ Anaya Field went St. Michael’s, one of the three teams it dominated in last season’s shortened coronavirus pandemic schedule, and the Horsemen took charge again.

They’ve got a bundle of versatility in four-year starting quarterback Lucas Coriz, and he can bank on many weapons at every skill position to go with a solid line of size and experience.

And when St. Michael’s turned to its defense, it was nothing but trouble for Taos. The Tigers came away with only 131 total yards, were sacked five times and fumbled the ball away as the clock ticked away. The best they could do was pick up 52 yards in just five plays before stalling.

Fernandez did find some fault.

“On their opening drive,” he said, “we were a little high strung, maybe trying to do so much. Once we settled down, our linebackers started reading their keys and hitting the gap. That helped.”

The long-time coach with three state championships was also concerned about starting senior linebacker Andy Dang left the contest following the very first play with a separated shoulder. Fernandez said the staff would monitor Dang’s status heading into next Saturday afternoon‘s home tilt against city-rival, 6A Capital. He added that he hasn’t yet ruled Dang out.

Defensively, he was able to get by handily on the road, giving up only 52 total yards rushing that included five sacks against quarterback Daemon Ely. Now running back Matthew Suazo did carry the ball for 53 yards, but Ely’s 31 yards

lost on sacks neutralized much of them.

Ely’s initial pass was a 27-yard completion on the game’s third play, but didn’t complete his second pass until the final seconds of the third quarter.

As for Coriz and company, he was added to the defensive front that he did play as a freshman, but he didn’t see much play there after assuming the role of quarterback later that season. This time he excelled on the other side of the ball by helping put a stop on the first Tigers’ offense.

On offense, the first St. Michael’s points came after a short drive capped by a 27-yard field goal from kicker Milena Keene, the starting goalkeeper for the girl’s state championship soccer team. She finished with six points, converting 3-of-4 PATs, with two of them up and over the middle of the crossbars.

Coriz added an electrifying 50-yard touchdown midway through the second quarter. It was a play in which he scrambled away from defenders, reached the Taos sideline, then sped to the middle of the field, and when he got to the 10,

finally sped into the end zone for a 9-3 lead.

He wasn’t done yet. He followed that with a 73-yard TD run in the second half. He said he enjoyed both of these touchdowns, but added that the first one was more run. He threw for 125 yards and ran for 11 yards, while the Horsemen’s combination of run and gun brought 427 yards in total offense.

Other rushing TDs came from Issac Ruiz and Daymon Lujan, and Devin Flores added a touchdown catch. Flores was clearly Coriz’ favorite target. Along with a 48-yard run of his own, he had 14 passes thrown his way, which was more than three times as many as any other Horsemen receiver.

Lujan ran for a total of 77 yards and Ruiz picked up 31 on four carries. St. Michael’s led 16-3 at halftime and didn’t score again until the 8:06 mark of the final quarter. And it was no doubt an impressive debut for Keene. Her field goal bounced off the upright and fell nearly straight down, just making the crossbar. Her only failed point-after came after the first touchdown and just gazed the other crossbar.

It was nice to see her earning cheers from St. Michael’s and Taos fans.