November Madness: Class 5A Quarterfinal Round Preview

The first round of the Class 5A playoffs went as expected with all four higher seeded teams winning. The top four seeds (Farmington, Los Lunas, Roswell and Artesia) enter the fray in the quarterfinals. We have two rivalry matchups and an intriguing game dripping in tradition. <strong>Santa Teresa (8) at Farmington (1)(Fri., 7 p.m.)</strong>: The Santa Teresa defense posted its second straight shutout in the first round, blanking Piedra Vista, 21-0, at home. But in the quarterfinals the Desert Warriors will be severely tested by a prolific Farmington offense led by quarterback <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="26232" first="Brandon" last="Furbee"]</strong>, who transferred to the Scorpions from Grants before the season and has been everything they hoped for and more. He has thrown for close to 2,000 yards and 14 touchdowns and together with a solid ground game (22 rushing TD) and a suffocating defense has the Scorpions thinking state title. Senior <strong>Julian Gomez</strong> is the top rusher, while three receivers (<strong>[player_tooltip player_id="135130" first="Patrick" last="Shay"]</strong>, <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="26252" first="Chance" last="Carrillo"]</strong> and <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="198301" first="Ethan" last="Thomas"]</strong>) share the pass catching load. If Santa Teresa is going to come away with an upset win after traveling almost 450 miles to the Four Corners, their big guns must show up in a big way. That means dual threat QB <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="198070" first="Julian" last="Cobos"]</strong> (1,225 rushing yards) – if he plays - and <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="26240" first="Adrian" last="Rodriguez"]</strong> (829 rushing yards) must ignite the offense against a Farmington defense that has registered a half dozen shutouts this season. Cobos has missed the last two games with an injury and could be cleared to play. Running the football is what the Desert Warriors do with a 3-to-1 run-pass ratio. Four rushers have 350+ yards. <strong>Mayfield (5) at Artesia (4)(Sat., 1 p.m.) </strong>: This game has tradition dripping all over it. Mayfield and Artesia have won a combined 38 state titles and appeared in 53 state championship games. Yet they haven’t squared off since 1974, mainly because they’ve been in different classifications. Artesia, aiming for its fifth state title since 2010, earned a bye in Jeremy Maupin’s first season as head coach. They bounced back from a disappointing season-opening loss to Carlsbad in the Eddy County War to win seven of their final nine regular season games, including Hobbs, Belen, Lovington and Goddard. Mayfield, meanwhile, has bounced back from a three-game losing streak in the middle of the season to win its last five contests, including a convincing 49-3 win over Los Alamos in the first round. The tasty matchup in this battle is at running back, where three of the top ball carriers in Class 5A will strut their stuff. <strong>Jacob</strong> <strong>Barrera</strong> has gotten the vast majority of the carries for the Bulldogs, while the senior tandem of <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="26260" first="Calvin" last="Cox"]</strong> and <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="134970" first="Jose" last="Montoya"] </strong>has headlined the Trojans rushing game all season long. Here’s a good bet: Whichever team runs the football the best will win the game. <strong>Goddard (6) at Roswell (3)(Fri., 7 p.m.)</strong>: These intense cross-town rivals meet in the playoffs for the first time, and the Wool Bowl should be shaking. In fact, they squared off two weeks ago in their annual slugfest and Roswell came away with a 16-14 win in an emotionally charged, hard-fought defensive slugfest. Expect more of the same Friday night with the stakes even higher – the loser eliminated from the playoffs and the winner moves on to the semifinals. Roswell is one of the feel-good stories in Class 5A this season. The Coyotes, fielding one of their youngest teams in years, lost their first four games. At that point, the playoff seemed a thousand miles away. But Roswell regrouped, and learning from their early season hardships, won five of its last six games, including a 3-0 district mark. The Coyotes love to run the football and <strong>Sebastian Mendoza</strong> and <strong>Jonah Gamboa</strong> are key figures for Roswell in that quest. Goddard trounced Valley, 56-14 in its playoff opener last week, and got two pieces of good news in the process. QB <strong>Adrian Vega</strong> and RB <strong>James Torrez</strong>, both sidelined with injuries since the first half of the first game of the season, returned to action against the Vikings and helped spark the lopsided win over the Vikings. <strong>Belen (7)  at Los Lunas (2)(Sat., 2 p.m.)</strong>: When these two geographic rivals met two weeks ago, Los Lunas polished off an unbeaten regular season with a 38-6 victory at home. So, what must Belen do this time to give itself the best chance to pull off the upset? First, find a way to contain Los Lunas dual threat QB <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="137885" first="Paul" last="Cieremans"]</strong>. The junior threw for 183 yards, rushed for 88 more and accounted for 3 TD against the Eagles. Cieremans is close to joining the prestigious 1,000-1,000 club as he has thrown for 1,114 yards and rushed for 978 yards and accounted for 31 touchdowns. Frankly, unless Belen finds a way to keep Cieremans bottled up, they have little chance to win. Belen slipped past Deming in the first round, 25-21, on RB <strong>Diego Avila</strong>’s go-ahead TD run in the fourth quarter. Avila finished with a season-high 167 yards on just 11 carries. Avila is Belen’s second-leading rusher behind senior <strong>Sean Tibbs</strong> (712 yards on 151 carries). Belen rarely throws the football, so the No. 1 task for Los Lunas is well-defined: stop the run. The Tigers were able to do that in the first meeting, holding Belen to just 136 rushing yards on 51 carries, an average of 2.7 yards per attempt. Do that again and Los Lunas will punch its ticket to the semifinals and keep its undefeated season going for at least one more week. https://twitter.com/PrepRedzoneNM/status/1458860482446577680 https://twitter.com/BrandonFurbee2/status/1454864108067512323 https://twitter.com/_NMAA/status/1454857766934253570