Demons can’t match fireworks
SANTA TERESA 39, SANTA FE 21
One of the charms the annual burning of Old Man Gloom supplies is the look of total confusion on a non-Santa Fean’s face when told about it.
In town for Friday night’s high school football game against Santa Fe High, Dominick Dozal and his teammates knew about as much about Zozobra as the 40-foot effigy knew about them.
“I don’t even know what that is,” he said after leading Santa Teresa to a 39-21 win at Ivan Head Stadium. “I heard a couple people talking about it but, yeah, I have no idea. They said it’s like a giant statue or something, right?”
Uh, not quite. Not that it matters much.
Forgive Dozal’s ignorance. There aren’t many things in this state that are geographically south of Las Cruces, and Santa Teresa is one of them. The small town is actually closer to El Paso, snuggled right up against the Texas state line.
“We are a long way from home,” said Desert Warriors head coach Shae Vierra. “About six hours by bus.”
While an estimated crowd of tens of thousands turned out at Fort Marcy Ballpark on the other side of Santa Fe on Friday, fewer than 100 were in Ivan Head as the players warmed up for the game. What fans were there were treated to the Dozal Show. The Desert Warriors quarterback shredded the Demons defense to the tune of 300 yards rushing and 34 passing.
He scored his team’s first five touchdowns, helping extend Santa Fe High’s losing streak to 26 games. The Demons (0-2) have not won a game since beating Los Alamos on Oct. 3, 2014, and haven’t won in Ivan Head since taking down Capital on Sept. 12 of that year.
They’ve been outscored 1,206-180 during the streak, having been shut out nine times and held under 10 points 19 times.
Friday night’s afforded a long-lost look at some fireworks as senior Zach Russell scored the Demons’ first points of the season when he returned a kickoff 77 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter, a runback that tied things up after Dozal’s 23-yard scoring run broke the ice just moments before.
Dozal would score on runs of 23, 14, 21, 17 and 21 yards, all of them before the end of the third quarter. He had 180 yards by halftime as the Desert Warriors (2-0) opened a commanding 27-7 lead. He closed out the scoring by running 17 yards down the far sideline in the final few seconds of the first half.
“Just a real strong runner, a guy who reminds me a lot of Junior Ramirez from Portales last year,” said Andrew Martinez, Santa Fe High’s rookie head coach who faced Portales twice last year as the defensive coordinator at St. Michael’s. “[Dozal] runs the ball the same way, making plays by getting guys to miss. I watched him on film and knew he was a great player.”
Dozal said he topped 300 yards in a game once before, last season against Lovington. He gave all the credit for his performance to his offensive line, which allowed him to escape the backfield on the rare instances he decided to drop back and look to throw the ball downfield.
What he didn’t do, teammate Adrian Saenz did. The Santa Teresa running back scored his team’s other touchdown and had
98 yards on 17 carries.
Santa Fe High did managed to stay close for a while. Quarterback Levi Lopez found Russell for a 23-yard touchdown pass on the initial drive of the second half to give the offense its first scoring drive since last season. Three times this year the unit drove inside the opponent’s 10-yard-line but failed to score, including a stalled march earlier in the game.
A safety late in the fourth quarter allowed the Demons to get one final drive, which they turned into another touchdown with Lopez’s last-minute scoring pass to Isaiah Fordham.
The 21 points is the secondhighest point total the Demons have had during their skid. They had 34 in a loss to Taos early last season.
“There were some positives, no doubt,” Martinez said. “There’s some things we need to correct, like the penalties and things like that but, yeah, some good things happened for us tonight.”
As for Santa Teresa, it takes home a win on a night in which most of Ivan Head Stadium sat empty thanks to Zozobra’s burning.
“It’s a nice place to play and I’m surprised more people weren’t here, but after I Googled [Zozobra] I guess I can understand why,” Vierra said. “There’s nothing like that back home. We pretty much get whatever El Paso might be doing. Nothing like this, though.”