Santa Fe High’s football team was handed a 48-7 road loss

The roller coaster ride is almost over for the Santa Fe High football team.

Saturday afternoon‘s 48-7 loss at Albuquerque La Cueva, 3rd-ranked in 6A, dropped the Demons to 5-4 overall, and the finale Friday against visiting District 5 opponent Albuquerque High won’t salvage the season, but it would be the first winning campaign since 1998.

It was a stellar start for fifth-year Santa Fe High head coach Andrew Martinez, who was previously an assistant coach at St. Michael’s before he switched to his neighbors on Siringo Road,

The Demons opened by rolling past visiting Robertson, 34-8, next they hit the road for Moriartiy and brought back a 27-13 win, followed by a surprise 19-6 success at St.Michael’s that hadn’t occurred in some time, then a 48-28 rout at crosstown rival Capital.

Fine, now they were 4-0 as the ride became steep. They had confidence heading to first district foe Albuquerque Eldorado, but fell behind early, couldn’t contain the run-gun attack of the Eagles and it wasn’t much of an offensive day either for Martinez’ team in the 28-12 setback.

Next, Santa Fe High came home to Ivan Head Stadium and with the winless Albuquerque Manzano coming to town, didn’t except such a tough tussle that the Demons pulled out 35-27. But then came a trio of defeats as the ride became bumpy.

They lost next at home versus Albuquerque Sandia when behind by two points with time running out in the first half and the Matadors with the ball, committed back-to-back penalties and the new deficit became 16 points and the ending was a nightmare 55-28, before the home fans.

Clovis visited next. it had only one win but that came the previous week in a one-point win over Manzano, but the Wildcats arrived ready to rumble and carried off a tight 28-21 triumph.

And last but certainly not least, the Demons had to travel down I-25 South to Albuquerque La Cueva, which had lost only once in eight starts and is ranked behind Rio Rancho High and Rio Rancho Cleveland, both unbeaten and who met up in last year’s state finals with the Storm winning.

The Bears were prowling quickly. Myuh Robertson took the opening kickoff and raced 89 yards to Santa Fe’s 2-yard line. Two plays later,  Brandon Cabaniss bolted into the end zone from a yard out. After one quarter, La Cueva was up 28-0. At halftime, it became 42-0.

Late in the third quarter, the Demons reached the end zone when senior quarterback Luc Jaramillo hooked up with senior running back Martell Mora on a 40-yard pass-play, which was Mora’s 21st touchdown of the season. He is also one of the leading rushers in the state.

So now it’s the finale of a season that could have been better, but once the first four games were history, as was the undefeated record, the roller coaster went out of control too many times and put an end to the higher hopes.

But there’s still one more game to come and the Demons would sure like to come away with a 6-4 overall mark instead of settling for .500. Albuquerque High is 2-6 overall and 0-3 in district, tied with Manzano for last place, and have lost four-straight. The Bulldogs, for reasons unknown, played Eldorado twice and lost 16-6 and 29-15.

They opened with a loss at home to Organ Mountain, won game two via a 2-0 forfeit over Albuquerque Highland, romped 50-0 over winless Albuquerque Del Norte, and then came defeats to Albuquerque Volcano Vista followed by district losses to Eldorado, Clovis and Sandia, with the Clovis 25-24

loss the toughest one this campaign.

No doubt, Martinez’ team hopes to put together a successful finish in front of its fans. Heck, first winning season in 23 years isn’t bad.