Breaking News
Home / News / There were exciting moments, stellar individual plays, and state championships

There were exciting moments, stellar individual plays, and state championships

By Arnie Leshin 
For those who figured the four state football championships games would be ascloseasthis, forgetaboutit.
Instead, it was a Saturday afternoon of convincing victories by Robertson in 3A over visiting St, Michael’s, Lovington in 4A over visiting Ruidoso, Los Lunas in 5A over visiting Artesia, and in 6A, it was Rio Rancho Cleveland over over Rio Rancho High.
All four the higher seeds and all four taking advantage of home sweet home, and only 3rd-seeded Eunice’s 28-15 win over top-seeded Jal the previous Saturday’s in the 2A final was not won by the higher seed.
For the 3rd-seeded Cardinals at Cardinal Stadium, it was a huge second half that brought a 28-7 win over 4th-seeded St. Michael’s for their fourth state championship.
For the top-seeded Wildcats, it was a 19th state tile with a 41-21 rout over 6th-seeded Ruidoso at Wildcats Stadium as its former All-State, NFL All-Pro Brian Urlacker looked on.
For the 2nd-seeded Tigers, they finished undefeated at 13-0 by disposing of 4th-seeded Artesia, 40-28.
For the top-seeded, top-ranked, unbeaten Storm (13-0), it was a third state championship,  twice over city-rival, 2nd-seeded Rio Rancho High with a resounding 35-14 triumph at Thunderbolt Stadium. In last year’s shortened season because of the coronavirus pandemic, Cleveland lost in what was a bowl final to Albuquerque La Cueva.
And just to add the 2A final that was played the previous Saturday, 3rd-seeded Eunice pounded visiting No. 1-seeded, Jal, 28-15, to claim its 16th state title, three less than Lovington.
But for Artesia, the leader with 30 states, playing on the road takes away its usual home field advantage, and at Los Lunas the Bulldogs fell behind early and the Tigers just maintained their 20-7 lead after quarter one, spent a scoreless second quarter to stay ahead by the same score at halftime, and it was an even 14-14 final quarter.
But it was a usual Los Lunas win where it went undefeated at Willie Chavez Field. Again, it was another big game day from Tigers’ versatile quarterback Karlos Ciereman as he ran for four touchdowns, passed to Emilio Mora III for another, and also carried the ball to bring the 2-point conversion, with Kaden Bell kicking two of the point-afters.
Ciereman tallied on runs of 3, 6, 39 and 41. He again ran the option to the T, and also played well as a defensive back.
Artesia wound up at 9-4 after winning back-to-back tournament games at Bulldogs Stadium. Its stellar quarterback, Nate Taylor, threw four touchdown passes, two to Zaden Lopez.
For Lovington, it finished at 10-3, won its last six outings, and turned back Ruidoso for the second time this season, the other 46-14 back on Oct. 22.  And once again the surprising Warriors (8-6) could not stop Wildcats’ junior quarterback Ashton Aranda and his two senior receivers, Tayten Hilliard and Issac Hinson, along with freshman running back Ondalis Cardenas.
Aranda was 22-for-30 through the air and tugged the ball eight times for 67 yards. He tossed three touchdown passes to Hilliard and two to Hinson, while Cardenas ran for another.
Ruidoso was seeking a third blue trophy after hoisting the trophy in 2014 and 2017, and it was the first for Lovington since 2011. It came away with a good playoff run by upsetting 2nd-seeded Bloomfield and 3rd-seeded Albuquerque St. Pius X.
The Warriors did pick up a touchdown from senior student/football Iziah Martinez, who had “down syndrome”, and in an agreement between the coaches, both teams rushed to the end zone to congratulate him.
Cleveland, which topped the Rams, 28-27, in the regular season, took care of business early with three first-quarter touchdowns to offset the one by Rio Rancho, which concluded at 9-2. The Rams closed to within 21-14 at the intermission by keeping the Storm off the scoreboard.
But in the third and fourth quarters, the Cleveland defense took over by shutting down the visitors while it came up with a touchdown in each of those quarters. The Storm scored a whooping 600 points for the campaign and yielded 214. It came away with three shutouts, and stunned visiting Artesia, 70-29.
Thus, the final state rankings should have Cleveland on top, Rio Rancho 2nd, Los Lunas 3rd, Lovington 4th,  La Cueva 5th, previously undefeated Farmington 6th, Robertson 7th, Artesia 8th, Eunice 9th, and St. Michael’s 10th.
Honorable mentions to Raton, Bloomfield, Roswell Goddard, Clovis Las Cruces, Ruidoso, Moriarty, Mayfield, Roswell, Albuquerque St. Pius X, and Jal,

Check Also

God’s Encouraging Word of the day

“Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” 1 Corinthians 10:31 Since God …