Savvy Centennial outlasts La Cueva as Bears fall to 0-3

LAS CRUCES — Aaron Ocampo and his quarterback, Daniel Hernandez, were coming at this like two sides of the same coin.

Ocampo, the coach of the Centennial Hawks, viewed Saturday afternoon’s showdown game against La Cueva through one set of eyes.

Hernandez’s POV was similar, and yet not so much.

“There was urgency,” Ocampo said. “But more for us to be the type of team we need to be.”

Said Hernandez: “We made this a priority. We had to win this.”

And, behind Hernandez’s stellar dual-threat activities, win it the fourth-ranked the Hawks did, holding off a late charge from the second-ranked Bears for a 35-28 victory at the Field of Dreams in New Mexico’s premier prep football matchup of Week 3.

This also proved to be the first official win for either team.

“I didn’t think of them as an 0-2 team,” Ocampo said of La Cueva (0-3, one of those losses a forfeit to Rio Rancho). “We didn’t talk about anything down the line or having to win, we just talked about playing to our standard.”

Hernandez rushed 22 times for 212 yards and three touchdowns and passed for 130 yards and a pair of scores, though the second of those was basically a glorified hand-off.

And so Centennial (1-2), which at one point in the second half led 35-14, finally bagged that first win after losses to defending 6A state champ Cleveland and a tough El Paso Franklin.

“They (La Cueva) are a pretty good team,” Hernandez said. “But we made it a priority to beat them.”

At the end, Hernandez made sure the Hawks ran out the final 3:15 of clock after the Centennial defense stopped La Cueva at the Hawks’ 42 moments earlier.

Hernandez’s savvy and elusiveness was troublesome for the Bears’ defense throughout, including the end.

“Running quarterbacks are tough,” La Cueva coach Brandon Back said. “And he’s a heck of an athlete. Probably in the state, he’s the best returning QB, he’s got the most reps, the most experience out of any of the QBs returning, him or (West Mesa’s Elijah) Brody.”

It was La Cueva’s quarterback, Cam Dyer, who demonstrated his running skills first.

On the third play of the day, Dyer kept, danced along the near sideline and went 72 yards for a touchdown just 89 seconds into the game.

Centennial had the next three scores — first a TD pass to a wideopen Christian Ortiz, then running scores by Hernandez of 69 yards up the middle of the field (with a superbly blocked sequence by the Hawks) and then a fourthdown 2-yarder. “Daniel’s a dude,” Ocampo said. Dyer’s 25-yard TD pass to tight end Cruz Markham sliced the deficit to 21-14, but Hernandez added his third rushing score of the half, from 2 yards out, just before halftime.

The lead swelled to 35-14 when Hernandez’s flip pass to Jordan Lucas led to a 37-yard touchdown less than three minutes into the third quarter. The field position was set up by a botched La Cueva punt.

Still, the Bears dug in and found a reserve of oxygen.

Cheeto Lumbrera III had a short TD run near the end of the third quarter and, following a three-and-out from the Hawks, the Bears struck again quickly, with Markham taking a deep throw down the middle and turning it into a 56-yard score to bring La Cueva within 35-28 with 8:52 remaining. The Bears, until Centennial’s final, game-clinching drive, did an excellent job on Hernandez in the second half.

“We just went back to our DEA: discipline, effort and attitude,” Hernandez said. “We stayed locked in and kept a cool, burning enthusiasm.”

The Bears got the ball back only one more time after getting within one TD.

“As a coaching staff … we’re young, and we may have been too soft with these guys,” Ocampo said. “And we came out and got after these guys this week.”

VOLCANO VISTA 28, CARLSBAD 7: At Nusenda Community Stadium, the third-ranked Hawks (3-0) got another 100-yard-plus game from running back Alijah Gonzales — his third in as many weeks — who scored a pair of touchdowns in Volcano Vista’s win over the Cavemen (1-2).

Ilijah Hanson threw for two touchdowns for the Hawks.

ALBUQUERQUE ACADEMY 34, HOPE CHRISTIAN 14: At the Academy, Jett Galles rushed for three touchdowns, two in the first half, and the 4A Chargers (2-1) downed the visiting 3A Huskies (2-1).

Galles had scoring runs of 1 and 6 yards in the second quarter, and added a 45-yard touchdown in the third quarter for that 34-14 lead.

Lucas Tracy had a TD pass to Andres Grine, and Ryan Williams scored on a short run also for Academy.