Horsemen rain TDs on Jags
St. Mike’s QB Gabaldon throws for 317 yards, 6 touchdowns in win over Capital
There is a reason he’s called “Air Fernandez.” The Capital Jaguars were given a refresher course the hard way.
Joey Fernandez, the head football coach at St. Michael’s, digs the long ball, and he saw plenty of it on Saturday afternoon, much to the chagrin of the Jaguars secondary. Horseman senior quarterback Antonio Gabaldon threw for 317 yards and six touchdowns to lead St. Michael’s to its ninth straight mythical city championship with a 46-27 win over the Jaguars at Christian Brothers Athletic Complex.
In fact, neither Capital nor Santa Fe High, the two largest schools in the city, have earned a win over the Class 4A Horsemen since the Demons won 27-10 in 2008. That’s an 18-game winning streak St. Michael’s (2-0) owns over the two schools in that span, as well as wins in the last 12 matchups against Capital (0-2).
“They just want to win football games,” Fernandez said. “Going into the city championships, they know that they take it one game at a time, but they know that having bragging rights is a big thing. I didn’t know it was nine [years] in a row.”
The path to another city title came through Fernandez’s favorite route — the air. Gabaldon continues to demonstrate a growing grasp of the Horsemen offense, even in his second year. His growth this season has come in the use of the “no-huddle” spread offense.
Once again, Gabaldon recovered from a slow start to percolate when the moment arose. After hitting just three of his first six passes, Gabaldon missed just twice on his next 10 throws, amassing 128 yards and three touchdowns in that span that turned a scoreless game into a 26-0 rout.
The run started with a 28-yard touchdown strike to his favorite target, Joey Fernandez Jr.,
for a 7-0 lead with 2:39 left in the opening quarter. Gabaldon felt the Jaguars rush to his right, and rolled to his left to buy enough time to find a crossing Fernandez with a step on his defender at the Capital 5-yard line and he did the rest.
Pass No. 3 was another score for Gabaldon, as he hit Shawn Roybal on a slant route for a 15-yard touchdown on thirdand-goal to make it 13-0 at the 9:15 mark of the second quarter. The sixth pass of Gabaldon’s hot streak was a 40-yard bomb in which he hit Israel Chavez on a seam route. The play showed the maturity of both Gabaldon and Chavez to make an in-game adjustment on the route to get Chavez open.
“We were noticing they weren’t playing real tight, so on our signature plays, we could get those hitches [routes],” Chavez said. “And we noticed [the Jaguars safeties] were playing the sidelines, so I cut in on both of my touchdowns.”
Chavez finished the game with two touchdown catches, and Gabaldon threw scores to four players to let opposing defenses know that he is more than capable of finding players not named Joey Fernandez Jr.
“We got a great line this year,” Gabaldon said. “We can run or pass whenever we want because that’s just what kind of team we are this year. We’re pretty balanced.”
On the next drive, Gabaldon demonstrated his ability to get St. Michael’s out of a jam by finding Fernandez on a 17-yard catch up the middle on a 2ndand-17 at the St. Michael’s 28. That drive ended with the one non-passing touchdown of the day — a 2-yard run by Fernandez Jr. to make it 20-0.
Capital tried to rally, cutting into a 26-0 deficit as quarterback Cisco Leos hit Abraham Sanchez for a 62-yard touchdown pass with 1:23 left before the half. However, it was as close as the Jaguars got before scoring two touchdowns in the fourth quarter that got them back to within 46-27.
Capital head coach Bill Moon felt the first two drives of the game set an ominous tone for Capital. After taking the opening kickoff to the St. Michael’s 20, a poor snap led to a bad handoff to fullback Jacob Jiron for a 1-yard loss. A false start penalty and two incompletions fizzled out any scoring chances.
The next Jaguars drive reached the Horsemen 25 before another bad snap caused Leos to get stuffed for no gain. Then Estevan Segura fumbled on a sweep that he recovered for a three-yard loss and shortcircuited another scoring opportunity.
“Ifs and buts,” Moon said. “We came out like gangbusters and fumbled two snaps. Really? A high school team fumbling snaps? And we fumbled on a play. You can’t make any excuses for that. If you do those things, you will lose.”
Meanwhile Gabaldon showed an uncanny ability to wiggle the offense out of any long. On the first Horsemen scoring drive in the third quarter, Gabaldon used the pass to get St. Michael’s out of a 2nd-and-20 and a 2ndand-18. The end result was Gabaldon’s fourth touchdown of the day — an 18-yarder to Jake Tupler for 32-7 with 6:16 left.
The magic tricks continued on the next drive, as the Gabaldonto-Fernandez connection was good for 37 yards on a thirdand-25 at the Capital 48. The drive ended at the Capital 6, but Gabaldon wasn’t done yet. On his final drive of the day, Gabaldon turned a third-and-16 at the Capital 28 into a 28-yard touchdown to Chavez for a 46-13 lead.
As great as Gabaldon’s performance was, both quarterback and head coach let it be known that none of it was possible without the play of the offensive line. Capital managed three sacks of Gabaldon, but the line gave Gabaldon the time to look for the open receiver, more often than not.
“It’s an experienced line,” coach Fernandez said. “I knew coming into this season we’d have experience. Now, we don’t have depth, but we have guys that get in there and do a pretty good job. The first five are tremendous, tremendous athletes. Their run-blocking and pass protection has been great so far. We just got to stay healthy over there.”