Texico cruises past Capitan

TEXICO — The Texico football team came charging in and now goes charging on.

The Wolverines entered state 2A tournament play on a four-game winning streak, with a District 7-2A championship to their names, plus the No. 3 seed in 2A.

On the strength of all of the above, Texico went rolling into the state tournament Friday and rolled over 11th-seeded Capitan, 41-0, at Texico High School.

The Wolverines, who bagged their fifth straight victory and improved to 7-4, now move on to next weekend’s semifinal where they will play the winner of Saturday afternoon’s Hagerman-Lordsburg game.

Texico earned that semifinal berth by posting a 41-0 victory for the second straight game. The Wolverines bested Santa Rosa by that same count two weeks ago, also at Texico High, to win the district title.

Talk about charging into states. And charging ahead.

“Any time this time of year you get to play another game with a bunch of kids you’ve spent a ton of time with, it doesn’t get any better than that, Texico’s first-year head coach Bob Gilbreath said. “These kids have embraced the philosophy that we’re going to do things as a team; nobody cares who gets the credit. And the good Lord has blessed us along the way with some trials that made us tougher, and we made it through those things. And I’m just so happy for these kids to have the success that we’ve had and to have the opportunity to continue playing.”

“Oh, it’s awesome,” Texico sophomore Cade Collins said of the win, after contributing to it by rushing for 112 yards, two touchdowns and a pair of two-point conversions. “I’ve never seen anything like this before in my entire life. It’s once in a lifetime.”

Capitan head coach Justin Foust had seen enough of it. He was impressed, though.

“Well-coached team, they played hard,” Foust said of Texico. “They’ve got a good chance going forward to win a couple more games.”

Texico’s ground attack was simply overwhelming. Aside from Collins’ big night, fellow sophomore running back Zeke Soliz bolted for 144 yards and a touchdown. Soliz did most of his rushing in the first half, gaining 102 yards over the first two quarters. It was vice versa for Collins, who rushed for 78 of his yards during the last two periods, thanks in large part to a 63-yard touchdown jaunt in the third quarter.

And there was junior quarterback Gabe Dickerman, who factored into Texico’s first three touchdowns by rushing for the first two and passing to Gabriel Bailey for the third.

Just overall domination.

“Our offensive line is progressing; they’ve gotten better and better and better,” Gilbreath said. “Our perimeter people block well too. And we were able to scheme their defense a little bit with what they were doing, and get some overload situations with their motions.”

“I think it’s just watching film, watching film, watching film, Collins said. “Just knowing what they were going to do, the tendencies they have.”

Slow start, and then ...

Texico’s offense didn’t begin all that well, going three-and-out on its first possession of the night.

But the green and white’s next offensive series was a memorable one, because it began all the way back at their own 8 and ended in Capitan’s end zone.

On that drive, the Wolverines dug their way out to their own 27 in four plays, despite an illegal shift penalty that set them back five yards. Once Texico was at the 27, Soliz moved the drive along much faster when he broke loose along the left side for a 58-yard run to the Tigers’ 15. Only Capitan’s Jayden Mendibles stopped a Soliz touchdown by tackling him from behind.

Mendible’s tackle, though, just prolonged Texico’s drive by two plays — an eight-yard run and then a seven-yarder for a touchdown by Dickerman. Manuel Loera booted the extra point, and with 2:14 left in the first quarter, Texico led 7-0.

On their ensuing possession, the Tigers drove to Texico’s 32 in just three plays, a drive fueled by a 37-yard pass from Garrison Weems to Gabe Hayes. But an illegal shift penalty combined with relentless Wolverine defense forced Capitan to turn the ball over on downs after an incomplete pass on fourth-and-16 from Texico’s 42.

The Wolverines then went 58 yards in nine plays for a score, the capper provided by Dickerman with a 13-yard run around the left side and into the end zone. There was hesitation when Texico was about to kick the extra point, so the holder Collins picked up the ball and ran in for a two-point conversion, making it 15-0 with 7:19 remaining in the second quarter.

Texico began at its own 29 late in the half, and steadily moved down the field, threatening to score before intermission. The Wolverines faced a third-and-10 situation at Capitan’s 30 with just 14.5 seconds to go before halftime, but on that play, Dickerman lofted a pass between two defenders, and Bailey gathered it in for a touchdown with eight seconds left.

The extra point was blocked, so the score remained 21-0 Texico.

Collins began the second half with a 37-yard kickoff return to Capitan’s 43, and following an 11-yard Collins run and a 13-yarder by Brayden Bender, Soliz dashed the remaining 19 yards for a touchdown.

After an offside penalty on the conversion try moved Texico to the 1 Ω-yard line, Collins ran it in, giving the Wolverines a 29-0 lead with just 4:14 gone by in the second half.

Texico’s next possession lasted just one play — Collins’ 63-yard touchdown run — on which he weaved behind Wolverine blockers and around Tiger defenders to find the end zone.

“Good blocking,” Collins said. “Everybody blocked. Everybody did what they were supposed to out there. Credit goes to the line and all the glory to God.”

The extra point was no good, leaving the score at 35-0 with 9:05 left in the third quarter. That meant a running clock, but it didn’t run fast enough to keep Texico from adding another touchdown. This time Collins rushed for a two-yard score with 2:29 left in the fourth.

Soon it was over, and while Texico celebrated, Capitan dealt with the end of a 4-7 season.

“If you can’t win up front, you can’t win a football game at this stage of the year, Foust said. “Their lines handled ours, and that was the difference.”

The Wolverines were looking ahead to playing either second-seeded Lordsburg or seventh-seeded Hagerman next weekend.

“If we go to Hagerman it’ll be a Friday-night game probably. And we’ll enjoy that; it’ll be just like what we’ve done all season long, kind of the same routine,” Gilbreath said. “If we go to Lordsburg then we’re going to have an overnight trip and have a good time. We spend so much time together over the course of the football season, from the 1st of August and even before that — really the seven-on-seven and stuff over the summer — and you really develop some strong relationships. We just have fun together, so if that’s the case, it’ll be a long road trip but it’ll be fun because we get to spend a lot of time with people we care about.”

Melrose 62, Menaul 40 (Friday, 8-man semifinals) — The Buffaloes pulled away with a strong second half in Albuquerque to reach the 8-man state championship game for the sixth time in seven years.\

Melrose (10-1), seeded third, will host District 1 rival Tatum (10-1) at 6 p.m. Friday in the finals. The top-seeded Coyotes advanced with a 46-12 victory over Logan on Friday.

The Buffs and Coyotes have already met twice this year, handing each other its only loss with the road team winning both times.

The loss was the first of the season for second-seeded Menaul (9-1).