Cats seek to rebound

CLOVIS — The Clovis High football team needed to approach its preparation for tonight's home game against Goddard with some selective amnesia.

There was, after all, part of last Friday's 34-31 overtime loss at Rio Rancho that the Wildcats didn't want to forget — the fact that they went toe-to-toe with the top 6A team in the state.

The 'Cats, though, didn't want to dwell on the loss itself and how it came in heartbreaking fashion, resulting in large part from turnovers on their last three possessions of regulation.

Easier said than done.

"It's pretty hard," Clovis coach Cal Fullerton said after Wednesday's practice. "It's been hard for me to put it behind. We have a rule, a 24-hour rule: win or loss, we want them to forget about it. But, going to the No. 1-ranked team in the state at their place and having a chance to win the game and then pretty much just giving it to them at the end, it kind of stings.

"But I told them Monday before practice, 'These next couple of days at practice are going to show what kind of character you guys got. If you can kind of put that behind us and feed off it, feed off the loss and be hungry from it, learn from it, then you guys got pretty good character. Or, you can go the other way, where we put our heads down and pout around like we should've won the game, and not practice hard."

Fullerton said the Wildcats, through mid-week, had been choosing the former.

"They came out and they practiced good the last three days," he said, "so I think that says a lot about our kids."

Wildcats senior free safety Joe Gallegos would be an ideal candidate for the selective amnesia process, because he and the Wildcats certainly won't forget that he came up with three interceptions against a Rio Rancho quarterback, Logan Bruere, who hadn't thrown any prior to last Friday's game.

"Well of course (losing to) Rio Rancho was upsetting," Gallegos said, "but we were happy with how we played, especially against the No. 1 team. We put up a really good fight. We could've won that game very easily. ... After a week of losing, it's always hard, but we'll come out and we'll just play."

"(The Rio Rancho game) showed us what we could do and things to improve on," Clovis senior running back Seth Lopez said. "It showed us we can compete with the best. That was only Week 3."

Lopez, Gallegos and the rest of the Wildcats are ready to get back into it, move forward against Goddard tonight, try to return to winning and go 3-1.

Goddard is looking to smooth out its own record at 2-2. The Rockets opened with a 19-6 win over Capital before suffering consecutive losses to Piedra Vista and Carlsbad, edged 19-18 by the Cavemen at home last Friday.

"I know Goddard always plays us tough," Fullerton said. "They've always got a good football team. They're well-coached, they've got good kids. They're always physical, very strong up front. They've got great athletes, one at the quarterback spot, one at the running back spot. And they've got a couple of receivers that can play, too.

"They like to play smash-mouth and they'll try to run it right at you," Fullerton continued. "They'll get three yards a pop and that's a great play for those guys. So it'll be challenging, especially for our guys up front."

"Goddard has always been a good-hitting team," Gallegos said. "They're real physical, like Carlsbad. ... Last year we didn't play well against them. We won, but we always have to come out with our heads high, ready to win, expecting to win."

The Wildcats need one badly tonight, not only to rebound from Rio Rancho, but also to head into their bye week on a strong note rather than a two-game losing streak.

"We've got to get a win just for momentum," Lopez said, "just so we can go into the bye week better, confident."

"That's always our goal," Fullerton said, "week by week, to get a win and then get some bodies healed up. a little bit. ... But a bye week's always kind of a down week for the kids; they always want to play on Friday night."

There will be an added buzz around Clovis tonight because it's the Wildcats' homecoming game. Should be fun, but maybe not for the players.

"Homecoming, it's of course exciting, but I'm focused on the game," Gallegos said. "Homecoming, yeah, it's one of those things that's for the people in the high school, but us on the field, we focus on the game more than anything."