Cats lose home opener on the road

Dave Wagner: Freedom Newspapers

LAS CRUCES — The Clovis Wildcats bent — a lot — on Friday night, and they finally broke.

Playing with their backs to the wall much of the way, the Cats hung tough before Mayfield broke though in the final moments for a season-opening 7-0 victory at the Field of Dreams.

Junior running back Gabe Trujillo went over left tackle to score from a yard out with 2:41 left, capping a 31-yard drive that was set up by Trujillo’s 30-yard punt return.

Mayfield, ranked second in Class 5A, ran 61 plays from scrimmage to 30 for the third-ranked Cats and outgained them 289-62. David Bustillos, the Trojans’ 5-foot-8 senior quarterback, completed 13-of-22 passes for 172 yards while senior split end Chris Hernadez caught nine passes for 149 yards.

Mayfield had double-figure plays on each of its first four possessions, reaching the 3-yard line late in the half before a penalty and consecutive sacks by linebacker Jon Sweet and end Richard Alvarez thwarted the bid. The Trojans then missed a pair of field goals in the second half.

“We got down in the red zone so many times, I knew we had to score eventually,” feisty veteran Mayfield coach Jim Bradley said. “It was tough on the belly, I’ll tell you. I don’t need this.

“We didn’t do a good job on the goalline. But you have to give Clovis credit.”

The Wildcats mustered a 10-play drive early in the second quarter that stalled after they reached midfield. But that was easily their furthest penetration of the night.

Senior quarterback Devin Sweet finished just 2-of-8 through the air, but almost put the Cats ahead early in the fourth quarter only to have his deep pass from the Clovis 20 fall off the fingertips of a wide-open Rishard Matthews near the Mayfield 40.

Clovis assistant coach Darren Kelley blamed the team’s problems on poor practices during the week.

“We had chances, but we didn’t block anyone,” Kelley said. “We’ve got to be able to block people better than that, and part of that is we’ve got to do better in practice.”

Mayfield 7, Clovis 0

Clovis 0 0 0 0 — 0

Mayfield 0 0 0 0 — 7

Scoring summary

Fourth quarter

M — Gabe Trujillo 1-yard run (Jason Wuerz kick), 2:41. Drive: 7 plays, 31 yards in 2 minutes, 44 seconds. Key plays: 30-yard punt return by Trujillo; 12-yard completion from David Bustillos to Chris Hutchinson to the Clovis 14 on 3rd-and-5.

Clo May

First downs 4 19

Rushes-yards 22-57 39-117

Passing yards 5 172

Total yards 62 289

Comp-att-int 2-8-1 13-22-0

Punting 5-37.8 2-32.5

Fumbles-lost 0-0 1-0

Penalties-yards 2-10 7-45

Individual statistics

Rushing — Clovis, Brian Mead 10-38, Devin Sweet 2-9, Rishard Matthews 4-8, Tanner Fickling 6-2. Mayfield, Oran Gonzalez 15-66, Trujillo 8-38, Steven Gonzalez 5-31, Bustillos 11-minus 18.

Passing — Clovis, Sweet 2-8-1-5. Mayfield, Bustillos 13-22-0-172.

Receiving — Clovis, Matthews 1-10, Mead 1-minus 5. Mayfield, Chris Hernandez 9-149, Hutchinson 2-18, Trujillo 2-5.