Wildcats gearing up for rematch against Cleveland

CLOVIS — Think about 468 days, because the Clovis Wildcats and Cleveland Storm have done plenty.

It’s a year, plus a weekend. It’s five weeks short of 500. And up until Saturday, it was the number of days that separated the Clovis Wildcats from the 2019 Class 6A semifinals against Cleveland.

The Wildcats got back into the win column, 14-10 over Hobbs, while Cleveland was idle. And now it’s the Storm, which played the following week in the 6A championship, coming back from the longest of offseasons.

“It’s been a long time,” said Cleveland coach Heath Ridenour, a former Eastern New Mexico quarterback and assistant with both Portales and Clovis. “I will say we maximized our pods and used our time pretty wisely. We definitely hit the ground running (this week).”

And now, 3 p.m. Saturday is the place for the rematch of rematches, with each team playing only one game since that drag-it-out, “first team with a scoreless possession loses” contest won 56-43 by the visiting Storm.

Saturday will be the first of two straight Wildcat games in Rio Rancho — Saturday at Cleveland, 3 p.m. March 20 at Rio Rancho High. Clovis High School has been allotted 230 tickets for each game. Players and coaches will have first access at tickets — five per player and three per coach — until noon the Thursday prior to each game. Any remaining tickets will be available to the general public 1 p.m.-4 p.m. Thursday and 8 a.m.-noon Friday. Tickets are $5, cash only, and will be sold at the Clovis High athletic office.

Ridenour said with the idle weekend, he and his coaches scouted the game from an NFHS webcast and saw plenty of areas for concern. Ridenour said the Wildcats are still figuring themselves out a little bit with C.J. Gutierrez at quarterback — would-be starter Chance Harris graduated early to start college this semester at Colorado State — and that makes them dangerous because you can’t just know where the ball is going to go.

He does, however, anticipate the ball will find its way into the hands of running back Jeston Webskowski.

“He’s just a premiere player in the state,” Ridenour said. “You’ve got to find ways to slow him down. They’ve got talent all over the place. They’ve got three Division I kids, and two of them are on defense. You can run at Jaden Phillips on one side or you can run at Ernesto Acuna on the other side.”

Fullerton said he was happy with Gutierrez’ initial performance in the opener, and the issues he saw in a two-touchdown, one-interception performance were largely indiciative of the overall team and its 468 days of rust.

“He also starts at free safety,” Fullerton said of Gutierrez. “He gets to go forget about it if he has a bad series. He doesn’t have to sit on the sideline and dwell about.”

They’re really playing team defense. Coach Hatley does a good job teaching the scheme and how the players fit, does a good job of getting them to play together.

Fullerton anticipates a difficult game, but it’s a challenge the Wildcats welcome after being idle so long.

“They’ve had a couple of weeks to prepare for us,” Fullerton said. “They’ll have first-game jitters (like we did).”