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Another 5-star game by Robertson’s senior quarterback Matthew Gonzales

By Arnie Leshin 
Sorry, St. Michael’s, but you’ll see him again after Robertson High’s best athlete, senior Matthew Gonzales, just ran past the Horsemen for the state 3A football championship Saturday afternoon.
With that over with, Gonzales slows down a bit to be the top player on the basketball team, its Most Valuable Player last season. Here he’s listed at 5-7, but still at 140, and in some places he’s Matthew with the two ts and with the one t.
Of course, none of that matters, in his case, the smaller you are the faster you run, and the same on how his given name is spelled because he’s still going to execute, and on Jan. 28, he will take the court at St. Michael’s in district play, and on Feb. 11, he welcomes the Horsemen to his court.
After hanging on to a 6-0 lead at halftime, the 3rd-seeded Cardinals added another six after the intermission, and two more touchdowns in the final quarter to come away with a 28-7 victory for their fourth state title on the gridiron, and 35th overall state championship.
As usual, Gonzales put on a show. He may be listed at 5-foot-4, 140 pounds, but when he takes charge he comes up big, this time on both sides of the ball, rushing for three touchdowns that totaled 155 yards and finding his way to a grand total of 276 to go with with a trio of interceptions thrown by St. Michael’s junior quarterback Zachery Martinez.
His ground game brought the Cards 337 for the day before a packed house at Cardinal Stadium. Plus picking off three passes were instrumental in holding the 4th-seeded, District 2 rival visitors to 187 total yards, 136 coming through the air, while the home side threw only nine passes for 34 yards.
But with Gonzales engineering things, it didn’t matter, because when his team needed to move the ball, they called on him. He did his usual, stepping away from would-be defenders, racing down the sidelines, up the middle, and just as he’s done before, winding up in the end zone. In the earlier game played at Robertson’s field, it was a 44-7 rout over its rival.
The head coach is Leroy Gonzalez, no relation, the rising star is freshman Jesse James Gonzalez, and he’s Matthew’s younger brother. He tallied the Cardinals’ other touchdown on a 6-yard scamper up the middle and then ran successfully for the 2-point conversions that failed the first two times after Matthew scored. Jesse added this 22 yards on four carries.
The lone Horseman touchdown came when the Cards’ sophomore Mateo Contreras batted a Martinez pass away and right into the waiting arms of St. Michael’s senior wide receiver Devin Flores, who sped untouched for a 60-yard tally and senior Milena Keene of the other gender kicked the PAT to trim the gap to 20-7.
But that was it for the Horsemen as Matthew ended its day with the final touchdown. It wound up at 9-4, just couldn’t get its running game in gear as it did for most of the season after 4-year starting quarterback Lucas Ortiz injured his knee in the game at Santa Fe High and it required surgery. Then, after trying to replace the talented Ortiz, head coach Joey Fernandez finslly decided on Martinez.
He had been doing a decent job putting the ball in the air and sometimes picked up yardage running the ball, but here he was picked off five times and sacked the same number of times.
And on the other side of the ball, his defense just couldn’t contain Gonzales, or rather the Gonzalez’ that included Jesse and junior Ace Gonzalez, who played center and kept the defense from getting to Matthew, while in defense he did equally well as the inside linebacker.
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Jesse also converted the two points again following Matthew’s third TD in the fourth quarter that resulted in the final score and a 11-2 overall record for Robertson. Apparently the Cards do not have a kicker who can boot the PATs. It also didn’t matter earlier in the season when also on their home field, the Cardinals shellacked the Horsemen, 44-7.
As for Matthew, he just picks up more speed when he gets into the clear, and this comes when he bolts up the middle and just turns it up, or when he races along the sidelines. His touchdown runs came on 36, 49 and 70 yards. There were no punts by Robertson, four by St. Michael’s.
The Cardinals had more first downs, 19-9, and more penalties with seven for 75 yards to the five for 45 yards from the Horsemen. Robertson ran the ball 44 times, St. Michael’s 20. Martinez connected on 11 of 25 pass attempts, Gonzales was three for nine with one interception.
The Cardinals travel well and no doubt they will be there to see Matthew in the game late in the New Year in Santa Fe. But on the same night, the Horsemen will have to again contend with the little guy who plays so big.

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