Horsemen run; Dons stumble
“Air Fernandez,” you say?
Even Joey Fernandez, the longtime head coach/offensive coordinator for the St. Michael’s Horsemen, protests the nickname betstowed upon him more than two decades ago. Any good offensive coordinator knows that, in order to throw, he must have a good rushing attack.
“I’ve always believed in the run game,” Fernandez said. “Everybody thinks that I’ve always thrown the ball, but in all the years, we had a great running game to go with it.”
Fernandez offered proof Saturday afternoon. St. Michael’s eschewed the pass for much of its District 2-3A home game against West Las Vegas, preferring to run, run and run some more to tire out the Dons’ defense. It worked to the tune of 218 yards as St. Michael’s rolled its way to a 27-19 win at Christian Brothers Athletic Complex. It is the fourth straight win for the Horsemen, and all of the worries that came with another 0-3 start are evaporating into the crisp October air.
“We just want to keep this momentum going,” said senior running back Ray Lynch, who was one of three runners to gain at least 40 yards. “It’s really
helping us a lot.”
And every member of the football team, whether a player or a coach, points to the improved play of the offensive line for changing the narrative. For most of the season, the anticipated group of starting linemen never shared the same huddle until the last three games. It is no surprise that the three best rushing totals for the Horsemen have come during that stretch.
After averaging just 63.7 yards per game through the first three games of the season, St. Michael’s pushed that output to 163 yards per contest during its winning streak, and its total against the Dons was a season high.
“Without the line, we wouldn’t have a running game,” said junior Lucas Montoya, who led the team with 84 yards on a team-high 15 carries. “They stepped it up, like everyone else stepped it up.”
But not every stroke of this run game mosaic was elegant. There were three fumbles by Montoya in the second half, including two that came during a five-possession stretch during which the Horsemen and Dons exchanged turnovers. Three of the turnovers came on successive plays, but the entire series of miscues ended up being a field-position boon for St. Michael’s.
Starting with Montoya’s fumble that West Las Vegas safety Elijah Alarcon recovered at the St. Michael’s 40-yard line, the Horsemen managed to find their way into Dons territory when Lynch recovered Isaiah Deane’s fumble and ran to the West Las Vegas 22 to end the string of turnovers.
From there, St. Michael’s stayed on the ground to reach the goal line, capping the five-play drive with Daymon Lujan’s 7-yard touchdown gallop around the right end to give St. Michael’s a 14-6 lead with 4 minutes, 3 seconds left in the third quarter.
“Usually, whoever wins the turnover battle wins the game,” Fernandez said. “We had two turnovers that we got on their side of the field, which made the field a lot shorter. It makes it easier when you can do that and get some easy touchdowns.”
Even quarterback Lucas Coriz, who has carried much of the offensive load this season, got into the act when he scrambled his way out of a potential sack and rumbled his way down the left sideline for a 52-yard touchdown run to up the St. Michael’s margin to 20-6 with :52.6 left in the quarter.
Coriz ran for 65 yards and two touchdowns. By comparison, he was a paltry 5-for13 through the air for 75 yards, a touchdown and an interception.
Meanwhile, the Dons struggled to find any momentum as they often were their own worst enemy. It started right from the opening kickoff, as Josh Gonzales fumbled the pooch kick and Horsemen sophomore Angel Romero recovered it at the West Las Vegas 32. The turnover resulted in a 16-yard touchdown run for Coriz to give St. Michael’s a 7-0 lead just 2:23 into the game.
The Dons had five turnovers, and committed 11 penalties for 97 yards — many of them coming at inopportune times that put West Las Vegas in long down-and-distance situations. That took away from senior quarterback John Balizan’s attempts to keep the Dons in the game, as he went 19 of 27 for 136 yards and three touchdowns while also rushing for 88 yards.
“It was just a domino effect with everything going wrong,” Dons head coach Adrian Gonzales said. “Turnovers and our momentum would be slowed by an untimely penalty here, a bad snap there or having a kid come out and putting another kid in. It was hard to get a rhythm.”
The Horsemen know all about that. It took them until October before finding the running game that could be the difference between a short stay in the state playoffs and a deep run to the state championship game.
Don’t let the “Air Fernandez” moniker fool you.