Clovis High fooftball team jockeying for playoff positioning

CLOVIS — Clovis High's football team has one opponent tonight — La Cueva.

It may be hard, though, for the Wildcats not to think about the point spreads involved in district playoff tiebreaker scenarios. But they will have to avoid such thoughts. They've got one team to try and beat, the second-ranked team in District 2-6A.

"You can't be thinking about how much you have to win by when you're fighting for stuff," Wildcats head coach Cal Fullerton said after Thursday's practice. "We just have to have a good game and let the pieces fall."

Here's how the pieces are falling right now between Clovis (5-4, 1-2 district), La Cueva (8-1, 2-1) and Eldorado (6-4, 2-2). The first tiebreaker is head-to-head; LaCueva has already beaten Eldorado and Eldorado has already beaten Clovis. If Clovis were to beat LaCueva, each of the three teams would be 2-2 in district play, and the head-to-head results would be even. So, point spreads come next.

Clovis lost to Eldorado 35-26, so the Wildcats' point differential there is minus-9. LaCueva beat Eldorado 35-21, but the spreads have a 13-point cap, so LaCueva's point differential is plus-13. Eldorado's minus-13 against LaCueva and plus-nine against Clovis gives the Eagles an overall minus-four point differential.

So, the Wildcats will have some points to make up tonight, but again, they're not going to let themselves think about that.

"We'll just go have fun like the last couple of weeks," Clovis senior running back Seth Lopez said Thursday. "That really helped us the last game. We just went out and had fun."

They had 40 points' worth of fun last week against Sandia, 33 in the first half, while posting a shutout against the Matadors. Lopez had 90- and 49-yard touchdown passes from Darian Goins, plus a two-yard scoring run. The week prior, Clovis routed Santa Fe 42-6.

82 points in two games is fun indeed, but the Wildcats now face a LaCueva defense that has only allowed 100 points all season, 11.1 per game. That means the Wildcats' opportunities may be limited, and they'll have to take full advantage of what opportunities they do get.

"We'll have to move the chains," Fullerton said. "We'll have to overcome some stuff we've done in previous games. We can't have penalties on first downs. ... That just puts us in a hole."

"We need to eliminate offensive mistakes," Lopez said. "We can't be first-and-20 on a defense like that. We have to take care of the ball."

Defensively, the Wildcats spent part of these recent mid-autumn days focusing on Summer. That is, La Cueva's junior quarterback Dylan Summer.

Long and lean (6-foot-3, 195), Summer likes to throw — a lot. Through nine games he's attempted 253 passes, roughly 28 per game. He's thrown for 2,165 yards and 30 touchdowns, with 11 interceptions, this season. His season-high in passing yards thus far was 362 in the Bears' opener against Cibola on Aug. 25, and he had a six-touchdown performance against Sandia on Oct. 20.

Summer did have three interceptions and two lost fumbles against Eldorado, proving he can be forced into mistakes when made uncomfortable.

"When you get a little pressure on him, he doesn't throw great balls," Fullerton said. "Hopefully we can put some pressure on him and force him into situations he doesn't like."

It's also worth noting that despite Summer's five turnovers last week, La Cueva still won the game, a testament to how skilled the Bears are all over the field. Their top rusher, junior D'andre Williams, picked up the slack against Eldorado, rushing for 134 yards and two touchdowns on 26 carries. He'll be looking to go over 1,000 yards for the season against the Wildcats tonight, coming in at 929 yards along with 11 scores.

"Defensively we're going to have to come up with some big stops," Fullerton said.

Overall, Clovis has to play one of its best games.

"It'll have to be similar to last week's first-half effort," Fullerton said. "We have to win the turnover battle, the possession battle. And we're going to have to throw the football, back up their linebackers."