12-0 Robertson to face Portales
State title game to be played at ENMU
And then there was one. One northern football team left in the high school state playoffs, that is.
But, oh, that one.
The Class 4A No. 1-ranked and undefeated Robertson Cardinals have reached the state championship game again, and Robertson (12-0) will face a familiar foe in No. 2 Portales (11-1), a team the Cardinals knocked off in last year’s semifinals.
This time, though, the game will be played at the new Greyhounds Stadium on the Eastern New Mexico University campus instead of the ragged, grass surface at Robertson. Kickoff is 1:30 p.m. Saturday. “It’s a state-of-the-art facility,” Rams coach Jaime Ramirez said of the $13.5 million stadium that opened this year. “The kids love it. It’s a nice atmosphere.”
No matter the setting, Robertson coach Leroy Gonzalez said his squad will be focused on one thing only.
“This is two good teams playing and we’re playing for a championship,” he said.
“We probably don’t know how to act on a nice surface. But when it comes down to it, each quarter is 12 minutes long. The field is 100 yards long. It’s the same game you play during the year; it’s just that there’s something at stake at the end of this one. We’ve told the kids, ‘This is a special moment, so be your best and have no regrets and play to the whistle.’ ”
The teams are fairly similar in their makeup in that each plays hard-nosed defense and each prefers to establish the run offensively, while both can be dangerous through the air.
For the Cardinals, the latter means watching quarterback Arjay Ortiz make something special happen, which he did repeatedly last week against Hatch Valley, throwing for a career-best 295 yards and three touchdowns, while adding two more scores rushing in a semifinal win over the defending state champion Bears.
“He’s a dual threat,” Ramirez said. “He throws the ball well, runs the ball well. He’s a concern for any football team that he plays.”
Gonzalez said Portales was a well-rounded team.
“They’re very physical,” he said. “They’re a tough team, physical up front. They look like they control the line of scrimmage in every game they’ve played, kind of what we try to do. They have a heck of running back (Darion Ontiveros) and (Francisco) Ramirez is a heck of a quarterback. And they have a receiver (Tyrese Dawson) who is a playmaker. They put people in binds with their offense.”
It’s really the defense that separates Robertson from its opponents, said Ortiz, who also plays defensive back and had an interception that he almost returned for a touchdown last week, as well as a fumble recovery.
“The coaches expect something from us and we expect something from ourselves,” he said. “They expect us to make the big plays and make the tackles. And defense has a lot to do with it, too. Our defense is pretty good and we love to hit. That’s just it. A lot of teams come and if they don’t like to hit, they don’t like to play us.”
Class 3A
No. 4 Eunice (8-4) visits No. 2 Capitan (11-1) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the 3A championship game.
The district rivals met just less than a month ago in Eunice, with the Tigers winning 21-12. Capitan is riding an eight-game winning streak.
The Tigers have a pair of 1,000-yard rushers in QB Price Bowen (1,1016 yards and 13 TDs) and junior Stephen Ellison (1,233 yards and 12 scores). Both average well over 7 yards a carry.
Bowen has also thrown for over 1,400 yards and 18 TDs.
Sophomore Juan Sosa (1,028 yards, six TDs) leads the Eunice ground attack. The Cardinals have also thrown for nearly 1,800 yards this season.