St. Mike’s uses 4 QBs in Los Alamos win

Fernandez will seek starter after group connects on only 4 passes for 30 yards

LOS ALAMOS — Now playing the role of mad scientist: Joey Fernandez.

Trying to navigate his way through a prep football season following a season-ending knee injury to his fourth-year starting quarterback, the St. Michael’s coach used four replacements in a Friday night road game at Sullivan Field.

The end result wasn’t pretty, but it worked. The Horsemen pieced together three 80-yard touchdown drives in an otherwise unattractive 21-6 nondistrict win against Los Alamos.

It carries St. Michael’s (3-1) into a much-needed bye week that will, if all goes well, bring a sense of stability to an offense that is still reeling after Lucas Coriz went down last week.

“It’s not an off week,” Fernandez said. “We’ve got some options we can work with. What we really want to do is get this thing to where we have one guy jump out and take the lead.”

Sophomore Jacob Katko got the start in Friday’s game but it didn’t take long for the revolving door to start spinning. Katko was replaced on that first drive by senior Devin Flores, whose first snap was out of the wildcat formation.

Before the half was over, Isaac Ruiz and Marcus Leyba took turns at QB. For most of the game, it rotated between Flores and Leyba with a handful of Katko plays sprinkled in.

“The hardest thing about it is feeling like you have to hurry everything,” Flores said. “The throws, especially. It’s something I never really worked on because I never had to. It just takes time, I guess.”

A typical Horsemen game might see a 50-50 split in runs to passes. Friday’s game saw 53 offensive snaps, 39 of which were runs. Flores, Leyba and Katko (Ruiz did not attempt a pass) were a combined 4 for 14 through the air for just 30 yards.

Everything else came on the ground, including the bulk of all three scoring drives; two 80-yard marches in the first half that produced a 14-0 lead, the latter a methodical, back-breaking 80-yard drive that ate nearly 5½ minutes off the clock late in the fourth quarter after the Hilltoppers (2-2) had made it a 14-6 game.

“We have to,” Fernandez said when asked if developing a passing threat is the key to resuscitating the team’s offense. “Until we do, you’re going

to see teams put eight men in the box and daring us to throw. We can’t just run the ball in this offense.”

Crowding the line is making life challenging for Horsemen running backs Daymon Lujan, Leyba and Ruiz. Lujan took a handful of heavy hits from a Hilltoppers defense that stacked the line of scrimmage all night.

“He’s a tough kid and we need him in there,” Fernandez said. “He’ll never take a play off, ever. That’s the thing, though. We need all 11 guys to work as hard as they can on every single play. If nine of them are and two aren’t, someone’s going to get hurt.”

Fernandez said he wasn’t terribly happy with his team’s practices leading into Friday’s game. Part of that, he said, may have had to do with the mental challenge of losing Coriz in last week’s emotional loss to Santa Fe High. The other: Learning to reinvent themselves after the season had started.

The Horsemen grabbed an early lead after stuffing a Los Alamos drive inside their own red zone. The quarterback-by-committee approach needed 11 plays to cap an initial drive with a 5-yard Leyba touchdown run late in the first quarter.

The second drive was a thing of beauty. Leyba started at QB as he, Katko and Flores engineered a 14-play march that lasted 8 minutes, 4 seconds. Ruiz ended it with a 2-yard touchdown run to make it 14-0.

The Horsemen then failed to pick up a first down on each of their next five possessions. On top of that they were slowly losing the field-position battle, going three-and-out and following it with a bad punt or a healthy Los Alamos return. The Toppers had three second-half drives that started in Horsemen territory, including one that set sail from the 22-yard line after a poor punt.

“We discovered we have a defense that can rise to the occasion but, you know, it shouldn’t have to do that every time we run onto the field,” Fernandez said.

Four Los Alamos drives were stopped cold deep in St. Michael’s territory, one of which was from the 4-yard line after the Hilltoppers drove the length of the field only to get turned away.

The Horsemen put the game away in the fourth quarter, getting a 10-yard touchdown run from Flores with 1:37 left. The offense converted on third down twice and fourth down once. The go-to play was a Flores keeper right up the middle on a shotgun snap.

That play generated the longest gain of the night by either team, a Flores 43-yard run in the first quarter.

“We just need to work on the passing, and that’s all about timing,” Flores said. “It’s not that easy.”

NOTES

The Horsemen will host Socorro in two weeks. The Warriors supplanted the Horsemen as the No. 1 team in this week’s Class 3A coaches’ poll. The loss of Coriz seems to have led rival coaches to lose faith in the Horsemen. St. Michael’s was No. 4 this week . ... Help is on the way at QB. Fernandez said the team will get junior Zachary Martinez back in the mix late next week. Martinez is, by all accounts, the most seasoned of the Coriz backups and is considered the most polished passer the team has left. Fernandez said Martinez should be in the fold for the Socorro game on Sept. 25.