Cibola’s Villasenor signs with Elmhurst
On Friday afternoon, Cibola High School hosted a press conference as former Raiders offensive tackle Elijah Villasenor officially signed his National Letter of Intent to continue playing at the collegiate level.
Villasenor, a Yuma native, plans to be suiting up for the Elmhurst Bluejays this fall. The Division III university is located in Illinois, less than 20 miles west of Chicago. Other schools on Villasenor’s radar included Bethel University, a Divison III school in Minnesota, as well as Clarke University, an NAIA program in Iowa. He says the process of selecting a college was a difficult one.
“Some other colleges were really pushing to get me to commit, but I felt like Elmhurst was the right place to go,” Villasenor tells The Yuma Sun. “I really liked the coaching staff and my best friend is going there as well. Visiting the campus, it looked old and rustic and like something you’d see in the movies. I’ve never seen anything like it before, it’s really nice.”
From an academic standpoint, the former Cibola Raider says he wants to study nursing in college. He was drawn to that area of study because of his passion for helping others. On the field, Villasenor has ambitions to become a four-year starter at left tackle.
Initially, the game of football didn’t come easy for the college-bound lineman once he entered high school. As a freshman, Villasenor says that he saw very limited playing time on the field. Instead of feeling discouraged, he put in extra work that offseason and eventually was named a starter on the junior varsity squad during his sophomore season.
From there, Villasenor then elevated himself to a varsity starter in his final two seasons with the Raiders. In 2021, Villasenor helped Cibola win its final four games of the year, including a 23-14 victory over Gila Ridge in the city championship. Having played football since about the age of five, the future collegiate athlete says the game means the world to him.
“I starting playing catch-n-go at a young age and worked my way up to Pop Warner. Football is everything, it’s my life and it’s all I’ve been working towards,” Villasenor adds. “This is what I want to make my family proud of.”