Tigers hope to make next step

Though it seems like they just hung up the cleats last week, a new high school football season gets going again for several area teams this weekend.

Among them, 2018 Six-man state finalist Elida hosts Lake Arthur in a historic Friday-night game — the Tigers’ first-ever under the lights. ’18 Eight-man state semifinalist Melrose travels to Menaul High School in Albuquerque to play Dulce on a neutral field. And Texico begins the Bob Gilbreath era with a road game at Jal.

Exciting weekend. Here’s the lowdown.

Lake Arthur at Elida, Friday, 7 p.m.

Friday Night Lights is no longer a phrase that doesn’t apply to Elida home games. The Tigers will play under them on Friday when Lake Arthur visits.

It will also be the first time Jereme Woodruff trots out onto the field as Elida’s head coach. He was a Tigers assistant on last year’s team that played Animas in the state championship game.

“It’s exciting,” Woodruff said. “This is my first stint as a head high school football coach. ... I’m really excited.”

Adding to the excitement is that three of the players who will take the field with Woodruff are his sons — senior Jonathan, sophomore Jesse and eighth-grader Jeremiah. “That’s really exciting,” Coach Woodruff said.

Even more exciting are the bright prospects Elida seems to have. The Tigers’ 2018 postseason consisted of a 52-47 semifinal home victory over Carrizozo and a 59-21 championship-game road loss at Animas. Elida and those opponents were the state’s three premier Six-man programs, but only the Tigers return a large contingent of their players.

“Animas and Carrizozo graduated a tremendous amount of seniors,” Woodruff said. “So to be able to come into this season having played teams like that and have retained the meat of our team from last year, we’re in a pretty good position.”

Lake Arthur was not among that elite group, but is not without its prestige, either.

“Lake Arthur is a school that’s played six-man football for as long as I can remember,” Woodruff said. “I remember playing against them when I was in high school. They’ve always had a pretty good tradition. Recently they’ve fallen on hard times, but we’re always glad to have them as an opponent.”

As for the matchup, Woodruff points to one big general edge for Elida.

“With small-school ball, a lot of times it just comes down to numbers,” he said. “One of the advantages we have is our depth — we have 20 guys that we could play with; last I heard they had 10.”

The Tigers’ main strategy will be simple — stop No. 14. Junior Adrian Guillen is a quarterback and linebacker who could give them fits on either side of the ball.

“Pretty talented kid,” Woodruff said. “He’s one of the guys we’ve got to watch out for wherever he’s at. He’s kind of their key guy; they try to make everything work around him. If we can find him, we can find the ball or we can find where they’re trying to pressure us from.”

If the Tigers are successful, they could jump out to a positive start in what they think has the potential to be a memorable season. Last year’s run to the opposite end of the state to play Animas may have just been the beginning of a great new era of football at Elida, now in its second year since returning from an eight-year hiatus. Woodruff says last year’s Tigers were the school’s first boys team to play for a championship since the 1993 boys volleyball squad. Since then, highlighted by eight consecutive girls basketball championships from 2011-18, Elida has been dominated by girls athletics.

“That’s started to change,” Woodruff said, “and we’re excited to hopefully be able to make some history this year.”

Melrose vs. Dulce at Menaul HS, 5 p.m.

Caleb King begins his second season as Buffaloes head coach, guiding a team that reached the state eight-man semis last year despite employing many new starters and battling early-season injuries.

Not the case so far this year, especially in the latter category.

“You always have your little nicks from scrimmages and practices,” King said, “but we’re pretty healthy across the board, so that’s good. We weren’t last year.”

King says he didn’t know a whole lot about Dulce, but has picked up some general morsels as he prepares for Week 1.

“They’ve got a pretty big line,” he said. “I think we’re faster than they are and have more speed. It should be a really physical game, so we’re going to have to be ready for that.

“Their strength mainly comes in the run game,” King continued. “They’re big, they’re going to try to run the football. On defense, they’re going to try to make you struggle with pressure and throwing the football.”

Offensively, King wants to keep Dulce guessing, keep the Hawks from stacking the line.

“We’re going to try and spread them out,” King said. “We’re going to try to use our speed on the outside, make it more difficult for them to not have as many men in the box.”

Texico at Jal, 7 p.m.

The story about how Bob Gilbreath once wowed then-Clovis High head football coach Eric Roanhaus with his kicking ability is fairly well-known.

Gilbreath will now try to wow Texico fans with his coaching ability.

Texico’s first official game with Gilbreath as its head coach and Gilbreath’s first official game as a head coach, period, kicks off Friday night at Jal. The Wolverines begin a season in which they will try to improve on their 4-8 record from a year ago.

They are catching a Jal program on the rise. The Panthers went 5-6 overall, 2-1 district last season, and hosted a first-round state 2A playoff game, their first home postseason action since early in the decade.

Two Jal players who continually frustrated 2018 opponents won’t be a care in the world for Texico on Friday, because Gavin Trevino and Damien Soto have graduated. Trevino rushed for 1,935 yards and 28 touchdowns last year; Soto racked up 99 tackles, 15 for loss, including his team-leading five sacks.

Offensively, Jal’s third-year starting quarterback Junior Ibarra will now be more of the focal point with Trevino gone.

Texico won the matchup 30-20 at home last year, but will have to make the trek to Jal this season. If the Wolverines can get a victory there, they will have already matched their total number of road wins from last year, when they went 1-4 away from Texico High.