Clash of the Jaguars

Thursday night‘s 44-21 non-district loss at Albuquerque Atrisco Heritage Academy was a miserable one as Capital fell behind early and then thankfully for the visitors in the clash of Jaguars, an almost 90-minute delay of lightning strikes, thunder, and heavy rain at Nusenda Community Stadium.

And with this head coach Joaquin (Wax) Garcia of the Jags from Santa Fe saw his team recover from a pass, run offense that had the home team Jags already up 24-0, and it led to Capital’s third defeat in six starts as it now goes against District 5-6A favorite, visiting Los Lunas on Sept. 30.

Atrisco, now 5-1 after a resounding opening loss at Albuquerque Sandia, came away with 554 yards of total offense led by its junior quarterback Dean Marquez’s 442 yards through the air. He added a quarter of touchdown passes.

The first was a 59-yarder he hooked up with Manny Sedillo, who got behind the Capital secondary only 53 seconds into the game.

By the time officials called a lightning delay at the 9:13 mark of the second quarter, Atrisco had 289 yards of total offense. It had an abundance of mixed big plays on the ground and through the air as Capital struggled with the other Jaguars’ speed.

But after the delays, Capital’s Jaguars did a remarkable better job the rest of the night, allowing but two big plays of that nature the rest of the way.t

That’s what developed, what made Capital much better at maintaining its assignments, and that slowed down the Atrisco machine that had averaged more than 50 points per game coming into Thursday.

And on offense, Garcia’s team countered with a run-dominating attack that brought 256 yards along the ground and three touchdowns.

On its first drive after the lengthy delay that forced spectators to leave their seats when the lighting, thunders and rain interrupted, Capital needed seven running plays to go 75 yards and senior quarterback Julian Munoz caped it with a 9-yard TD run and it was now 24-7 with 6:55 remaining in the first half.

But Atrisco responded with a 56-yard drive, with Andres Villaloboes’ 21-yard into the end zone increasing the score to 30:7 with 5:24 left before the intermission.

Munoz, whose sophomore brother running back Juan, is the other half of the team’s one-two punch on offense, led his side’s ground attack with 113 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

Much too little and much too late as the Jaguars met up.