Wildcats win third straight district title
PETER STEIN/NEWS-SUN
LOVINGTON – There was some razzle, some dazzle. There was a lot of putting the Wildcat into the name Wildcats. And there was some great second-half defense.
And when it was over, there was a third consecutive district championship for the Lovington football team.
The Wildcats beat Portales 29-21 in Friday night’s regular-season finale at Lovington High School’s Brian Urlacher Field, and in doing so, continued their post-COVID district dominance. After winning the District 3/4-4A championship in 2021, the ’Cats have now won District 4/6-4A titles in each of the last two years. The district three-peat was secured with Friday’s win that saw Lovington mix it up offensively in the first half and shut it down defensively in the second.
And so, the distinction of district champs belongs to the Wildcats for at least another year.
“It feels really good,” Lovington head coach Anthony Gonzales said. “All of the adversity and everything that these kids had to go through, nobody believed that these kids could accomplish it. And so they’ve kind of had a chip on their shoulders, and they’ve stayed humble, they’ve kept working, week by week. And just to get to this moment in the season right here, it took a ton of work. So for our team to come out here and play the way that they did and win the three-peat district championship was a pretty special deal for this group of kids.”
“It feels good, it feels good,” Lovington senior receiver/linebacker Demarcus Thompson said. “We were ready for it, though.”
“It feels great,” Wildcats senior quarterback Wyatt Gomez said. “We’ve got to get ready for the next one in two weeks, if we get the bye. This is great, though, it means a lot to us and we worked hard for it.”
Lovington closed out the district schedule at 3-0, while dropping Portales to 2-1 in district play. While the Wildcats improved to 7-3 overall, the Rams suffered their first loss of 2023, falling to 9-1 overall.
“Lovington’s a good football team,” Portales head coach Jaime Ramirez said. “I think both teams played great, and we just came up a little bit short tonight. We’re going to go and watch film, get better, and we’ll be a better team for the playoffs.”
Portales certainly had a great game-opening series. After Rams senior running back Zach Radloff was stuffed for no gain on the first play from scrimmage, quarterback Paxton Culpepper found plenty of running room on the second. With the ball at the Rams’ own 34-yard line, Culpepper dropped back, looked downfield for a moment, then headed left and dashed through an opening on the left sideline. He picked up a block around the Lovington 10-yard line, then finished a 66-yard run into the end zone.
Toby Standifer knocked home the extra point, and with just 51 seconds elapsed in the game, Portales led 7-0.
The Wildcats began their first possession of the night with … well, the Wildcat. Thompson took a direct snap and rushed for 17 yards, beginning a Wildcat kind of night for Lovington.
“Demarcus Thompson, in my opinion, is the best football player in the great state of New Mexico,” Gonzales said. “I know I’m a little bias because I coach him, but I think he’s the very best player. And so when you have a player of that magnitude, why not snap it to him? So we had the opportunity to do that. … We also put both Camon Ochoa and Alec Holguin in the Wildcat formation; that’s always been something that’s helped us, being able to run the quarterback. So we just found a way to take care of Wyatt a little bit and put the load on those other guys.”
But, that initial Lovington possession, despite beginning with so much promise, fizzled on downs at the Portales 19-yard line with 7:21 to play in the first quarter.
The Rams’ new possession, however, lasted just three plays, ending on third-and-three from the Portales 26 when a high snap resulted in a free ball that Lovington senior linebacker Anson Marquez recovered at the Rams’ 12.
After Thompson took another direct Wildcat snap on first down and rushed for eight yards to the Portales 4, Holguin got the second-down carry and ran up the middle for a touchdown.
Caleb Aranda booted the extra point, tying the game at 7 with 5:34 remaining in the first quarter.
The Rams’ next possession began at their own 40-yard line, and was in danger of fading out when they soon faced third-and-12 from their 49. But on that play, Culpepper passed to an open Tommy Lopez, who ran diagonally left and all the way for a touchdown.
Standifer kicked another extra point, giving Portales a 14-7 advantage with 4:43 left in the first quarter.
Lovington didn’t take long to answer. After the ensuing kickoff, the Wildcats went to work at their own 32-yard line, and on first down, Ochoa carried the ball left before appearing to be stopped for a short gain. He wasn’t down, though, just bent over a bit, so he stood upright and took off down the left sideline, with his coaches shouting, ‘Go! Go!’ Ochoa did go, all the way for a 66-yard touchdown run.
Aranda’s extra-point attempt was wide right, but with 4:24 to play in the first quarter, the Wildcats had climbed within 14-13.
It wasn’t until the second quarter that the ’Cats took their first lead of the night. They did it with a 14-play drive that began with 2:15 left in the first quarter and ended with 8:37 to go in the half. The series was kept afloat by an offside penalty against the Rams on fourth-and-eight from the Portales 47 followed by a 10-yard pass from Gomez to Elijah Rivero on the ensuing fourth-and-three play.
Four plays after that, Lovington had a first down at the Rams’ 21, and opted for some more trickery. After again snapping the ball directly to Thompson, he ran right a bit, then stopped, looked downfield, and passed, finding teammate Zadrick Betancourt wide open for a touchdown in the right side of the end zone.
A two-point conversion pass attempt from Gomez to Cesar Gonzalez was a bit low and incomplete, but the Wildcats had surged into a 19-14 lead.
The Rams punted on their next possession, and the ’Cats took over at their own 31 after the ball rolled dead there. Four plays into the drive, Lovington faced a second-and-seven from its own 34, and on that play, Gomez passed left to Rivero, who turned and found lots of room to pile up yards-after-the-catch and more importantly, room to find the end zone, transforming a relatively short reception into a 66-yard touchdown play.
A two-point conversion run was nullified by a holding call, so the Wildcats opted to kick the extra point, which Aranda did to put his team up 26-14 with 4:59 left in the second quarter.
That, as it turned out, was plenty of time for Portales to score again before halftime. A good kickoff return by Braden Beck had the Rams starting at their own 46-yard line, and they drove the necessary 54 yards in nine plays, the ninth a second-and-10 situation from Lovington’s 11 that saw Culpepper duck away from a sack and run for a touchdown. Standifer kicked his third extra point of the night, drawing the Rams within 26-21 as 1:36 remained in the half.
And that, as it turned out, was enough time for Lovington to score again before halftime. The Wildcats appeared headed for the end zone, driving into a first-and-10 situation at the Portales 13, and had second-and-five from the 8 after a Gomez pass to Patrick Sanchez. But the next two plays ended with incomplete passes in the end zone, so Aranda came out and kicked a 25-yard field goal with no time left in the half.
50 points in the first half. It seemed as though the game was going to be high-scoring, a track meet.
Not so fast. Defense was the story of the second half, as each team held the opposing offense to no points. There were opportunities for both offensive units, but while they could get the opposing defenses to bend, they couldn’t force them to break.
Quite a stark difference from the first half.
“The biggest thing for us was our defensive linemen,” Gonzales said. “Coach (Alex) Ochoa and Coach (Pecos) Fort did a phenomenal job at halftime making some adjustments up front, keeping him (Culpepper) in the pocket. They are a big sprint-out team, they like to get him out of the pocket. Having the force of Demarcus Thompson on the edge made them change some things, but my credit goes to those defensive linemen, those eight kids that we rotate in there got after it in the second half, and were determined to make sure that he wasn’t going to push the ball down the field.”
“We just had to finish,” Thompson said. “Wrap up and finish.”
Portales had a big defensive turnaround too, after surrendering 29 points in the first half.
“I think we just calmed down a little bit, played better defense,” Ramirez said. “We missed a lot of tackles in the first half, arm tackles and stuff like that. The truth is, we played the second half like we should’ve played the whole ballgame.”
Both teams now await Sunday’s state playoff seedings. Portales has been No. 1 in Maxpreps’ state 4A rankings the past two weeks, Lovington No. 3. But Friday’s outcome might have a lot to say about who gets the No. 1 playoff seed.
“We just beat the No. 1 team in the state of New Mexico in Class 4A,” Gonzales said. “We should be the No. 1 team in Class 4A in the seedings, but I don’t control that.”
