Wildcats rested, ready to finish strong

CLOVIS — It’s probably fair to say the Clovis High football team has earned it. Getting nine games into the season without a bye week is a long time to wait for a break.

But the Wildcats won’t complain. When they finally reached their bye, they went into it coming off a 47-0 rout of District 2/5-6A rival Eldorado.

Having a Week 10 bye also gave the Wildcats extra days to prepare for their super-important regular-season finale against La Cueva this Friday at Leon Williams Stadium.

“It comes at a great time,” Clovis head coach Cal Fullerton said. “It gives us two weeks to prepare for La Cueva. They’ll be leading the district going into that game. ... If we win, we feel like we’ll get a home playoff game. ... Having two weeks to prepare for anybody is a good thing.”

And, late October seems as good a spot as any for extra time to recover from the previous two months’ work.

“Rest is very important,” said Clovis’ sophomore quarterback Chance Harris, who threw four touchdown passes and rushed for a score against Eldorado.

“We get to practice all five days of the week, so that’s really good for us,” said Wildcats sophomore safety Jeston Webskowski, who snagged two interceptions against the Eagles.

Clovis came through the first nine games at 4-5 overall, 2-1 district. The Wildcats began their season with August road wins at Hobbs and Aztec before losing their Sept. 7 home opener against Rio Rancho, the start of a four-game losing streak.

The ’Cats won their first district game by blanking Sandia 39-0 on Oct. 5. But after dropping the next one at Manzano, 19-0, Clovis had lost five out of six.

Then came last week’s home rout of Eldorado. So now, looking at the Wildcats’ ups and downs at this juncture is a bit easier with the Eldorado victory being their most recent. It was all ups the last time they took the field for a game.

The ’Cats are coming off their best defensive performance of the year, as coordinator Drew Hatley’s unit posted a shutout while creating five turnovers — the two Webskowski interceptions, a Montez Wright pick, and fumble recoveries by Ian Yruegas and Andrew Jaramillo. Eldorado totaled just 169 yards of offense.

When the Wildcats’ defense wasn’t on the field, their offense excelled at something that had been a problem for most of their prior games this season — execution.

Harris’ four touchdown passes occurred with no interceptions. He also rushed for a 67-yard touchdown, and Jaramillo bolted 77 yards for a score.

DeMarco Fitch scored twice — one touchdown receiving, the other rushing. Jaden Phillips also found the end zone twice, reeling in two of Harris’ touchdown passes. Malik Phillips had a touchdown catch as well. And, nobody in a purple uniform coughed up the ball.

Fullerton thought there was one major reason for all of it.

“Our offensive line did a great job; they opened up huge holes,” he said. “With the way (the Eagles) were playing, their defense pretty aggressive up front, I thought our guys did a great job. Our running backs had big holes to run through and the quarterback had big holes to run through. He had time to throw when we wanted to throw it.

“I thought our offensive line had the best game they’ve had all year.”

Even the special teams had a dominant night against Eldorado.

“Our kickoff team was running down the field, making great tackles, making big plays,” Fullerton said. “And it gets everybody into the football game.

“We won the turnover battle, we won the field position battle. So if you win all five aspects of the game, all five categories, you’re going to come out on top.”

The Wildcats are hoping for that kind of dominance against La Cueva. In fact, they will likely need such an effort to topple the Bears. They do expect to have most of their players available for the game.

“We’re pretty healthy right now,” Fullerton said, as he looked forward to the return of linebacker/running back A.J. Silva from a concussion in time for the La Cueva game. “That’s pretty good for us. He gives us a lot of depth.”

Fullerton was not quite as optimistic about the returns of wide receiver/defensive end Ro Morgan from a wrist injury and wide receiver/cornerback/backup quarterback Caden Zarikta from a knee injury.

“But other than that,” Fullerton said, “we’re pretty healthy.”

Which has not always been the case this year.

“We went through our bumps and bruises in the middle of our season,” Fullerton said. “We were throwing people in left and right, we didn’t have the same offensive line about three or four weeks in a row.”

The Eldorado game marked the second straight week that Clovis had the same starting five up front. That continuity, that cohesion, will be important coming out of the bye, since good protection does wonders for Harris. Clovis will almost certainly need another strong outing from the sophomore signal-caller, who’s now nine games into his varsity quarterbacking career. And his ninth start was his most effective so far.

“He had a good game,” Fullerton said. “He kind of bobbled the first snap of the game and after that he was pretty clean most of the time. I think he felt comfortable, he knew he had some protection. And again, that’s thanks to our offensive line.”

“I feel a lot more comfortable,” Harris said. “The way my line performed (against Eldorado), I’d take them to war any game.”

The next one is less than a week away.