Cats face stiff test against Storm

When he became Clovis High’s football coach over the summer, Stan Hodges knew he was walking into a challenging situation.

The Wildcats’ early schedule hasn’t done him any favors, either.

Clovis faces its third consecutive Class 6A power to open the season on Friday night when it hosts Rio Rancho Cleveland in a 7 p.m. kickoff at Leon Williams Stadium.

Since taking an 8-0 lead on their first possession of the season in the August 23 opener at Farmington, the Cats have been outscored 97-0 by the Scorpions and Rio Rancho.

It doesn’t get any easier against the Storm (1-1), who bounced back from an opening loss to Centennial with a 55-7 drubbing of Los Lunas last week.

“They’re a solid football team,” Hodges said. ”They run a mixture of what I call personnel groupings. They run so many groupings that it’s like preparing for three or four different offenses.”

Hodges is trying to keep his squad’s spirits up, but the Cats are also a banged-up team at this point. They lost sophomore quarterback Javi Jimenez to injury during last week’s tilt, and hope to get him back after next week’s open date.

He said the Cats lost two quarterbacks and three offensive linemen to injury against the Rams.

“Probably not this week,” Hodges said when asked about his QB’s status. “We’ll be glad when we’re able to get him back.

“The only thing I can say is we’ve got to to line up and do our best, and we’re going to do just that.”

Rams visit former district foe – Portales High (1-1) is hopeful of bouncing back this week when the Rams visit former District 4-4A rival Bernalillo (2-0) in a 7 p.m. start on Friday.

Like the Cats, PHS sustained some injuries during last week’s 30-7 loss to rival Lovington at Greyhound Stadium. Despite that, Portales acquitted itself quite well in the second half after trailing 27-0 at the intermission.

The Spartans went 8-4 in 2023, but two of the setbacks came against the Rams, both by shutout – including a 17-0 decision at Greyhound Stadium in a Class 4A quarterfinal playoff tilt.

Playing the third of four home games to start the campaign, Bernalillo routed Valley 46-6 in its opener before squeaking past Highland 20-19 last week.

“They’re a good football team,” Rams coach Jaime Ramirez said. “I think they’re a little better this year. They’re an aggressive, hard-nosed team.”

Ramirez said the Spartans show multiple formations on offense. Among their top players are senior quarterback Uriel Castro, junior wide receiver/free safety Joseph Duran, junior wide receiver/linebacker Kenneth Saiz and senior running back/inside linebacker Gabriel Trujillo.

PHS lost senior QB Paxton Culpepper to a knee injury in the first half against Lovington. Ramirez said senior running back Dallas Lozano, who replaced Culpepper last week, is likely to get the nod on Friday, but added that senior receiver Tommy Lopez is also getting some looks.

“Whoever does the best job during the week will end up being the starter,” Ramirez said. “I loved how we fought (last week), considering how we lost Paxton Culpepper. We were a little shell-shocked, but I thought we did a good job of making adjustments.”