Regional preview: Texico facing do-or-die

As he took a break from supervising a light practice Monday at Texico High School, Wolverines head football coach Pat Crowley didn’t sugar-coat his team’s stakes for its upcoming home game against Clayton.

The Wolves need a victory. Plain and simple.

A state 2A playoff berth likely depends on it. And Texico surely wants one of those.

“I believe this is a do-or-die game for us,” Crowley said. “Clayton has yet to win a football game; they’d like nothing better than to end our season. It’s a must-win; we’ve put ourselves in a situation where we have to win this football game.

“The one good thing about where we put ourselves as a football team is, we can treat this one as one-and-done, and it’s the same thing in the playoffs. We just get a week earlier start on it than everybody else.”

“We’ve dug ourselves a hole,” Texico senior wide receiver/cornerback Skyler Davis said. “If things don’t go well, it could be the end of our season.”

“I think it’s going to be a tough game,” Wolverines senior defensive lineman/offensive guard Colter Figg said. “But I feel like the team is prepared.”

Saturday’s game at Texico High School, scheduled to kick off at 6 p.m., is a matchup of two teams that have had their struggles this season. Clayton is 0-7 overall, 0-2 in District 6/7-2A. Texico is 2-7 overall, 0-2 district, reeling from a five-game losing streak after a promising 2-2 start.

The Wolverines’ two most recent losses were against two of the state’s best 2A teams — Fort Sumner/House and Santa Rosa. The Fort Sumner/House game on Oct. 12 was actually a solid showing for the Wolverines, who played good defense and ultimately kept it a two-score game, 24-8.

Last Friday’s game at Santa Rosa did not go nearly as well. The Wolves lost 48-0.

“Unfortunately, as a team in its entirety we regressed last week,” Crowley said. “We came off our best game against Fort Sumner, played our worst game against Santa Rosa.”

Prior to the Santa Rosa game, Texico’s offense had been getting a spark from sophomore quarterback Gabe Dickerman. Against the Lions, though, he was slowed by injury.

“Unbeknownst to me, he had hurt his shoulder in the Santa Rosa game. He didn’t feel I should be privy to that information,” Crowley said. “But he’s doing better now.”

Crowley expects Dickerman to again be under center on Saturday.

“Gabe will get the start,” Crowley said. “Whether he keeps it or not, I don’t know.”

Despite the numbers looming over Clayton — its record and its unbalanced points-for/points-against gap of 33-332 — Crowley thinks the Yellowjackets could be challenging.

“They’re large; they are big, defensive-line-, offensive-line-wise,” Crowley said. “Pretty well-coached. They run a multitude of formations on offense, and made a quarterback change two weeks ago that has reaped benefits for them. The kid that they got, No. 32 (senior Zachary Maynes), he can scat, he can move.

“However, looking at all their games that we have on film, they’ve got some other weapons that they can utilize in space.”

So, what will it take to stop them?

“We just have to stay focused, do our job,” Davis said. “In practices during the week, we’re going hard. And hopefully that’ll carry into the game.”

“I think we’re going to have to play a good game,” Figg said. “But if we keep practicing, we’ll be in good shape.”

They’ll have the advantage of playing at home, with enthusiastic fans backing them.

“I think the crowd’ll be into it,” Davis said, “because they know our situation. I think the atmosphere will be good.”

“I think the atmosphere here will be electric,” Figg said. “Hopefully, we have a lot of fans from here and from Clayton.”

The fans, the stakes. What a big night for the Texico football program.

“The kids are looking to respond,” Crowley said, “and I’ve got a good feeling.”

Mesilla Valley at Melrose, 7 p.m.

Fresh off their big victory over Gateway Christian, and now rolling along on a two-game win streak, the Buffaloes look to keep it going this Friday when Mesilla Valley Christian School pays a visit.

On the subject of teams coming off big victories is Mesilla Valley Christian, who beat a good but depleted Dora team 55-38 last Friday at Onate High School in Las Cruces. It was the SonBlazers’ first Eight-Man District 3 victory this season, improving them to 1-3 district, 2-6 overall. They had lost six in a row since winning their Aug. 31 opener.

Melrose survived against Gateway, 38-36, last weekend after Devon Bailey recovered an onside kick in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter. That came a week after the Buffaloes beat Dora 56-8 to halt their losing streak at five.

Each team now prepares to end the regular season. And each is playing well at the right time, especially Melrose.

“Yes, we are,” Buffaloes first-year head coach Caleb King said. “The young kids are starting to play better and starting to get healthy. That’s the big thing, getting everybody back. Those two things combined, that’s been big for us.”

Despite how well it’s been going for Melrose lately, the Buffaloes (3-5, 2-2 district) are taking nothing lightly against Mesilla Valley Christian.

“They’re a tough team. They just played their best game of the year,” King said. “They’ve had some young kids, but they’re starting to play better. We’re going to have to play a good game at home against them.”

King expected a steady diet of passing from Gateway Christian last week and expects the same from Mesilla Valley Christian this week.

“They’ll spread it out. They’ll throw it a bunch,” King said. “We’re going to have to do a good job in coverage.”

Win or lose this week, prevailing against Gateway last weekend likely put the Buffaloes in position to go after their fifth consecutive Eight-Man state title. The Eight-Man tournament bracket isn’t due out until Oct. 27, but King already likes the Buffs’ chances.

“I think that win got us into the playoffs,” King said, though he also acknowledged that this week’s game is almost as important because it will probably determine what rung on the playoff ladder Melrose occupies.

“We’ve just got to get that win (against Mesilla Valley),” King said, “to try to get that first (playoff) game at home.”

Tatum at Dora, 7 p.m.

Injuries plagued Melrose earlier in the season. They’ve been hitting Dora hard this month, at a most inopportune time.

As a result, the Coyotes have lost two straight and dropped to 5-4 overall, 1-3 in Eight-Man District 3 play.

Against Melrose on Oct. 12, a couple of i-words affected Dora — injury and infraction. Quarterback Trenton Paxton and running back Alex Urioste were lost to injury, defensive end/offensive guard Hunter Jones to an infraction. The latter’s result forced Jones to sit out last weekend against Mesilla Valley Christian, a game the Coyotes wound up losing 55-38. Paxton’s injury kept him from the Mesilla Valley game, forcing backup quarterback Joseph Urioste to play in his place.

Alex Urioste was able to return for the Mesilla Valley contest, but was injured again, suffering a concussion against the SonBlazers.

With that adversity, Dora heads into Friday’s home game against a strong Tatum team.

“They would be tough if we were fully healthy,” Coyotes head coach Mason McBee said. “They’re a good team. Tatum’s one of the better teams in the state. They’ve got size, speed, numbers.”

Having Jones available will be huge, especially on defense, because Dora will likely need to be extra sharp in that category. Tatum’s offense comes at opponents in a variety of ways.

“They kind of do a little bit of everything,” McBee said. “With Tatum, more so than probably anybody we played, they’re more balanced. Melrose is mostly pass, Gateway is the same. Tatum will get you both ways.”

Offensively, the Coyotes might be somewhat of a question mark. As of Monday night, McBee considered Paxton’s status day-to-day.

“Today (Monday) was his first practice,” McBee said, “so we’ll kind of see how he does. He cleared protocol, but I don’t know if we’ll rush him back.”

If Paxton can’t go, McBee is comfortable with Joseph Urioste taking the reins yet again.

“I don’t think Joseph did a bad job at all last week,” McBee said. “I thought we were a lot better than Mesilla.”

It would be good for Dora to topple Tatum, get back into a winning groove before the start of Eight-Man state playoffs. But even if the Coyotoes lose, McBee says there’s a way they can still come away with some kind of victory.

“We’re playing to win the game,” McBee said, “but ideally, if we could get through the game healthy and be healthy for the playoffs, that’d be great.”

Plains at Farwell, 6 p.m. MDT

Can anything slow the Steers down?

Not in the last six games. They’ve been on a tear, winning each of those six contests after losing their season opener to Friona, a streak making them the area’s hottest team.

Next up, a home game against Texas 2A Region I District 2 rival Plains. The Steers are 2-0 in district play after routing Seagraves 42-0 and Springlake-Earth 54-12 over the last two weekends, respectively.

Plains is 1-1 in district after edging Springlake-Earth 28-22 on Oct. 12 and losing big to Bovina 49-7 last Friday, with both games played at Plains High School.

The Cowboys (3-4 overall) are facing their first district road game, and will have to try and stop a versatile Farwell offense that can beat teams in different ways. Against Seagraves, the Steers showed they could air it out, as quarterback Leefe Actkinson passed for 223 yards and three touchdowns.

But there’s also that deep running game, led by Ricardo Ortega. Defenses haven’t had much luck slowing Ortega down, as his season total of 934 rushing yards and 10.3 yards per carry indicate. Perhaps the only thing keeping Ortega from already surpassing 1,000 yards is Farwell’s own running game, which has so many weapons that several players get to carry the ball and do so effectively.

Patrick Pena, Guerrero Olmos and Jonathan Sotelo have all been solid rushing options for the Steers, as has alternate quarterback Leo Ruiz, and even Actkinson. Combined, that quintet has rushed for exactly 1,000 yards on 192 carries, 5.2 yards per carry. Ruiz, in fact, leads Farwell in rushing touchdowns with seven, one ahead of Ortega.

It should be an interesting weekend.