Raiders blown out at home again
Balanced, explosive Imperial offense pulls away in 2nd half
The Cibola-Imperial football series has been pretty competitive in recent years.
The 2014-16 meetings each featured fourth-quarter dramatics, and even when the Tigers had fivestar running back Royce Freeman in their backfield prior to that the games weren’t ever one-sided.
Friday was entirely different.
For the second week in a row, Cibola was blown out on its home field, though last week — a 43-7 loss to 6A Basha — was a bit more to be expected than this, a 55-14 shellacking in which the Raiders were outgained 486-222.
Cibola (0-2 AIA) scored the first and last touchdowns of the game; a oneyard by junior quarterback Ethan Arvizo less than six minutes in, and a five-yard pass from Arvizo to senior Ryan Curtis-Sanchez with just 50 ticks left.
In between, it was all Imperial.
“Just too many mistakes on both sides of the ball,” Cibola coach Lucky Arvizo said. “We’ve just
Imperial: 1-0 overall Cibola: 0-2 overall
got to get better as a team, we’ve got to get that experience under the belt. We’re not where we need to be, obviously. And it isn’t one specific area, it’s all three facets of the game.”
Unlike Cibola, Imperial was playing its first game of the season, and perhaps the Tigers just needed a few series to get settled in. Because as late as halftime, it didn’t appear the Raiders were out of it.
Imperial junior quarterback Wyatt Rodriguez connected with receiver Santiago DeLaTorre for scores of 28 and 17 yards to turn a 7-0 deficit into a 14-7 lead, but the Tigers only had one other first-half touchdown and it wasn’t really the offense’s doing.
A few plays after Cibola’s defense came up with a