A rough kind of history Hatch stuns St. Michael’s, making Horsemen the only No. 1 team to lose opening-round game twice to an 8-seed
CLASS 4A QUARTERFINALS NO. 8 HATCH VALLEY 26, NO. 1 ST. MICHAEL’S 24
Having experienced this feeling before, Joey Fernandez knew something was amiss when he led his St. Michael’s football team through the pregame routine Saturday.
The top seed in the state playoffs for the fourth time in the last seven seasons, the Horsemen seemed … off.
“I don’t know what it was, but before the game I could tell something wasn’t there,” Fernandez said. “I can usually tell and today, something wasn’t there. I thought we could work past that and it just didn’t happen.”
St. Michael’s became the first No. 1 seed to lose its playoff opener four years ago when, after an undefeated regular season, it was upset on a miserably cold and snowy day by Las Vegas Robertson. The Horsemen (9-2) duplicated that early exit Saturday, getting stunned, 26-24, at home by
No. 8 Hatch Valley.
The Bears (8-4) scored twice in the final five minutes to overcome an 18-13 deficit and then held on as a late Horsemen touchdown was followed by a failed two-point conversion pass that would have tied it.
Shawn Roybal was the target on that play. He set things up by snaring a 53-yard touchdown bomb from quarterback Antonio Gabaldon just seconds before. Needing
the conversion to knot things up, Gabaldon rolled to his right and fired a pass to the front pylon of the end zone.
Roybal made a circus catch in mid-air and came down with his left foot near the corner of the end zone. The side judge was standing at arm’s length and immediately ruled Roybal had come down out of bounds.
The Bears recovered the ensuing onsides kick and uneventfully ran out the clock, touching off a wild celebration on one side of the field and quiet reflection on the other.
“I thought I was in, to be honest,” Roybal said. “The ref didn’t really say anything, but I guess I had one foot out. I don’t know.”
Hatch Valley moves into next week’s state semifinals at Ruidoso. It’s the second time since the 2014 playoffs that the Bears were seeded No. 8 and then upset the top team in the quarterfinals.
“Most of the seniors I’ve got now were just freshmen on that team, so they know what it’s like and what it takes to get it done,” said Hatch head coach Louis Howell.
How they got it done this time was constant pressure on Gabaldon. The Horsemen senior was sacked eight times and, until a late surge in the game’s final moments, was 1-for-17 passing with an interception. He finished with seven completions for 193 yards and a touchdown, but he was plagued by a number of dropped passes and a steady stream of Bears in his face.
“We have felt all along we had the best defensive line in the state and, you know, St. Mike’s is a good team but we felt we could get in there on them,” Howell said. “They made some big plays because they’re not the No. 1 team for nothing. We just found a way to respond to those big plays and make stops when we had to.”
Hatch scored touchdowns on a blocked punt and a strip sack of Gabaldon that ended with a fumble recovery in the end zone. The Bears also got a pair of short scoring runs from Chandler Carson and Saul Trujillo.
They led 13-12 at halftime and appeared to be on the ropes early in the third quarter when the Horsemen forced a turnover — defensive back Luke Kastendieck had just intercepted his third pass of the game — and got a 13-yard scoring run from Derek Roybal to go up 18-12.
They somehow weathered that storm and seized control in the fourth quarter despite fumbling the ball away inside the Horsemen 10-yard line with nine minutes left. They took over after a short Gabaldon punt and took the lead for good when Carson scored on a 1-yard keeper with 4:14 to go.
Gabaldon was trying to evade pressure on the next St. Michael’s drive when he was hit near the goal line by Hatch’s James Gimler. The ball popped loose and rolled into the end zone where Bears linebacker Jesus Moreno fell on it to open a 26-18 lead with 3:12 remaining.
Up until then, the constant pressure on Gabaldon had all but eliminated the Horsemen passing game and neutralized the rushing attack. Each of the team’s initial touchdowns came on end-around sweeps that produced an 80-yard scoring run by Shawn Roybal and a 70-yard run by Israel Chavez.
The last-ditch effort by the Horsemen to tie the game was basically the reason St. Michael’s had earned the top seed after a 9-1 regular season. Needing a big play in a pressure moment, the line held up long enough for Gabaldon to find a receiver in double coverage for a make-orbreak play.
The failed conversion pass, however, made the Horsemen the only No. 1 to lose its opening round game twice to an 8-seed.
“You know, I think there’s that part of all of us that wants to be the top team, to hear your name called as the No. 1 seed,” Fernandez said. “But there’s also that part of me that would rather get something else. There’s a lot of pressure because everyone in the state is looking at you as the team they want to beat. There’s something not easy with being that team.”
GAME NOTES
The top seed in this classification (now 4A but 3A until the 2014 realignment) has won just one state championship since 2011, that being the ’12 Horsemen. The top seed has lost three times in the quarterfinals, once in the semifinals and twice in the championship game. … Hatch quarterback Oscar Gonzalez had fewer completions (two) than interceptions. He was picked off by Kastendieck twice in the second quarter. … Bears running backs Trujillo (161 yards and a touchdown) and Carson (145 yards and a touchdown) did most of the work for the Hatch offense. … Excluding Gabaldon’s sacks and scrambling running plays, the Horsemen only attempted 12 rushes the entire game. Derek Roybal got five of them, for 17 yards and a score. … The Horsemen had 227 yards offense in the first half, 222 of them coming on just three explosive plays going for 70 or more yards.