Tigers ‘D’ shuts down Valley
Los Lunas posts six sacks in dominant performance
The Los Lunas Tigers dominated both sides of the ball Friday night at Milne Stadium, but their defense made a statement.
Los Lunas racked up six sacks and limited Valley to just 6 rushing yards on its way to a 20-0 victory. The Tigers improved to 6-2 overall and 2-0 in District 5-5A, while the Vikings fell to 5-4, 0-2.
It wasn’t all about defense for Los Lunas, which piled up 25 first downs and 499 yards of offense. But the Tigers didn’t exactly maximize their gains, as Valley forced three turnovers and twice stopped Los Lunas on fourth-down plays in the red zone.
But the missed opportunities didn’t matter thanks to the stingy Tigers defense.
“Those guys really played well,” LLHS coach Jeremy Maupin said. “We talk about team a lot. Sometimes when your offense isn’t clicking, like ours wasn’t tonight, you need the defense to step up. Our guys did.”
Los Lunas used a share-the-wealth approach on offense, which has largely been the plan since starting quarterback Nick Gaerlan went down with a knee injury. Six players rushed the ball for a combined 193 yards for Los Lunas, while quarterback Kade Benavidez finished 20-for-39 passing for 303 yards with a touchdown and an interception.
The Tigers got a Swiss-army-knife performance from senior running back Noah Gum. The small-but-speedy gum rushed for 41 yards, caught four passes for 44 more and tossed a 3-yard touchdown pass to Hunter Williamson on an option play.
“He’s the kind of player who can do a lot for us,” Maupin said of the 5-foot-7, 140-pound Gum. “He sees the field well, too, and notices things that we can take advantage of. His touchdown pass was one of those plays.”
Los Lunas broke a scoreless tie in the final seconds of the first quarter when Donald Thomas scored on a 3-yard run. A 33-yard pass from Benavidez to Cody Vocu set up the touchdown and the Tigers led 7-0 after one quarter.
Gum’s option pass to Williamson made it 14-0 with 4:02 left in the first half, but an even bigger play for the Tigers came moments later.
Valley recovered a fumble at the Los Lunas 22 in the closing minute of the first half when Vocu caught a pass and tried to hand the ball off to a teammate. Vikings quarterback Manny Sanchez-Vargas then completed a pass to Jove Messenger inside the Tigers’ 10.
But with 8 seconds left in the half, Los Lunas cornerback Alex Lucero picked off a Sanchez-Vargas pass at the 2-yard line.
The Tigers capped the scoring when Benavidez lofted a perfect 27-yard TD pass to Andrue Garcia in the third quarter.