Taos’ long journey ends in 4A semifinals
so about their brotherhood, that they ate it up,” Abreu said. “They pulled their coach out. They are some bad, bad, bad dudes.
“And I meant that in the most respectful way.”
The respect wasn’t just among the team. Bloomfield head coach Mike Kovacs and his coaching staff met with the Taos staff for a post-game picture together, whom he called a “class group.”
While Bloomfield (11-1) dominated most of the game, the killer moment came on the opening drive of the second half. Taos struggled to slow down the Bobcats’ fast-paced spread attack, surrendering 289 yards of total offense that led to a 25-0 deficit.
But the Tigers found a sliver of hope when they traveled 50 yards to score their first touchdown — a 10-yard connection from quarterback Daemon Ely to Favian Cordova with 14 seconds left in the first half.
Taos then appeared to force the Bobcats to punt on the first drive of the second half, when preparation met opportunity. When Drew Perez took the snap on a fourth-and-7 play from the Bobcats’ 24 yard-line and took two steps forward as if to punt. Then he took a few more. And a few more.
By the time the Tigers reacted to Perez’s jaunt, he gained eight yards and a precious first down.
“That was one of those turning moments in the game,” Kovacs said. “You want to sit there and you want to succeed and you want the athlete to succeed. He just flipped the coin for us and flipped the script, for sure.”
Moments after Perez’s run, Abreu muttered on the sideline they should have been ready for that play. Abreu said the Tigers had prepared for a fake-punt situation, but he didn’t think the Bobcats would do it that deep in their own territory.
“Hindsight is 20/20, like they say,” Abreu said. “It was just one of those things that we should have called what we called. It bit us.”
Four plays later, Bloomfield took a 32-7 lead when quarterback Ryan Sharpe hit Andrew Bair for a 22-yard touchdown pass with 8:55 left in the third quarter.
The Taos offense was already in trouble, having gained just 17 yards on the ground in the first half and 85 overall. The inability to run the ball, especially with Ely on designed plays, meant the 6-foot-7 signal-caller had to shoulder more of the load.
He completed nine of 20 passes for 101 yards and three interceptions to go with a touchdown pass. He managed
17 yards on seven carries, although one of them produced a 9-yard touchdown that brought the Tigers within 32-13 with :59 left in the third.
It wasn’t enough to keep the Bobcats’ aggressive defense from constantly pressuring him.
“They put pressure on me, but at the end of the day, it was pressure on my whole team,” Ely said. “We all bear the responsibility. I’m a big target physically, but my receivers, they help me out. The running backs, the line, they help me out when they do what we need to do.”
On the other side, Sharpe lived up to his surname. He ran for 26 yards and scored the game’s first touchdown, a 10-yard run around the left side with just 2:07 off the first-quarter clock. He finished the game 8-for-15 for 207 yards passing and three touchdowns.
Bloomfield balanced that with 320 rushing yards on 32 carries and four touchdowns from three different ball carriers.
“We dialed [the passing game] up early to make sure we could make that strike,” Kovacs said. “We were running the ball really well all day.”
As the sun began to set in the west behind the stadium, the Tigers shared hugs, tears and emotional goodbyes. But Ely said the lessons the Tigers learned from persevering through all of the adversity made the season that much more special.
“This has been an amazing journey,” Ely said. “All the obstacles we overcame to get here, this was our statement. You can’t argue against it, and it’s going to turn us on to some better memories in the future.”
Most of those memories were made on the state’s longest road trip.