Week 11 Whiparound: Top Performances, Best Games & Fun Stuff

Week 11 of the New Mexico High School football season is complete. Here is the final regular season edition of our Weekly Whiparound, which takes a deep dive into everything that happened on the field:    Team of the Week: Alamogordo. Battling Atrisco Heritage, West Mesa and perhaps others for one of the final two berths in the Class 6A playoffs, The Tigers faced a must-win situation at home against district rival Organ Mountain last Thur. night. The Tigers defense has been solid all year and they forced five turnovers from the Knights, including three interceptions and two fumbles. They had to be good all night long  as they nursed a 7-3 lead throughout the second half. The Tigers blanked Organ Mountain in the second half to finish with its first non-losing record since 2016.     Honorable mention: Lovington (20-14 road win at Portales in WTA district championship game); Los Lunas (54-0 win over Clovis in WTA district champ. game); Silver (13-0 win over Valencia in district champ. game)                          Player of the Week: [player_tooltip player_id='351056' first='Mason' last='Posa'], La Cueva. Posa, who has already been offered by New Mexico even though he's just a sophomore, did just about everything for La Cueva in their convincing 62-19 victory over Farmington in the District 6A-2 winner-take-all championship game Friday night at Wilson Stadium. Posa returned a punt for a TD, punted the ball 69 yards, forced a fumble, intercepted a pass, recorded 2 sacks and 3 tackles for loss. As Bears coach Brandon Back said afterwards, Posa was “everywhere.” UNM commit [player_tooltip player_id='137862' first='Aidan' last='Armenta'] was an efficient 12-of-16 passing for 192 yards and 4 TD for La Cueva in the final regular season game of his career. [player_tooltip player_id='270020' first='Ian' last='Sanchez'] caught 3 TD passes in the first half.   Best Team Offensive Performance: Los Lunas. The Tigers raced out to a 35-0 first quarter lead against Clovis after running just 11 offensive plays and never looked backin the District 6A-5 WTA championship game. Los Lunas finished with 285 rushing yards in less than three full quarters of action. Clovis played without offensive standouts [player_tooltip player_id='275303' first='Kash' last='Roberts'] and R.J. Nora.         Best Team Defensive Performance: Robertson. The Cardinals showed why they are a Class 3A title threat again by blanking cross-town rival West Las Vegas, 38-0, in the annual rivalry game between the two schools. Robertson limited WLV to 85 total yards, 58 through the air and just 28 on the ground in 18 rushing attempts. That's well below two yards per carry. WLV's longest play from scrimmage was 17 yards.   Best Game: Texico 36, Eunice 35. Two of the top teams in Class 2Aengaged in a back-and-forth duel eventually won by the Wolverines. Eunice QB Elijah Melancon brought his ‘A' game, completing 24-of-36 passes for 316 yards and 3 TD. [player_tooltip player_id='274788' first='Ashton' last='Thompson'] had 181 all-purpose yards. Texico is the #2 seed in the 2A playoffs and Eunice, the defending 2A champions, is the #4 seed. Can anybody beat Jal in the playoffs?        Honorable Mention: Sandia 40, Cibola 34 (2 OT); Silver 13, Valencia 0      Best Rivalry Win: Centennial 35, Las Cruces 14. Sure, Centennial already had the district title and a top four seed wrapped up before this game was played. But don't make the mistake of telling the Hawks this game was meaningless. Centennial views Las Cruces as their main rival, so they desperately wanted (needed?) to win this game. And they did with a dominant defensive second half performance, blanking Las Cruces over the final 24 minutes. QB [player_tooltip player_id='340297' first='Daniel' last='Hernandez'] rushed for 2 TD in the 1st half as the Hawks took a 20-14 halftime lead by gaining 185 yards on the ground. Hernandez finished with 155 yards rushing while [player_tooltip player_id='208691' first='Mikah' last='Gutierrez'] had 123 yards. Sophomore [player_tooltip player_id='280925' first='Jordan' last='Lucas'] blocked a punt and scooped up the loose ball and scored a TD.        Honorable Mention: Cleveland 35, Rio Rancho 14 ([player_tooltip player_id='138204' first='Josh' last='Perry'] rushed for 185 yards to spark the Storm's rally from early 14-0 deficit); Roswell 42, Goddard 7; Robertson 38, West Las Vegas 0; Capital 49, Santa Fe 6.             Things You Need To Know: Gadsden earned the No. 10 seed in the Class 5A playoffs for its first post-season berth in 50 years. Gadsden played as an independent in 2021 after leaving Class 6A and was moved to 5A in the last NMAA realignment. Gadsden will make the long trip to Los Alamos for a 5A first-round game on Saturday at 1 p.m. . .Los Alamos clinched a home game in the 1st round of the 5A playoffs by walloping Del Norte, 56-6. [player_tooltip player_id='269559' first='Teke' last='Nieto'] rushed for 126 yards on 6 carries. . .Deming won the District 5A-3 title with a 29-12 victory over Gadsden by scoring 21 points in a nine minute span bridging the first and second quarters. . .Class 5A No. 1 playoff seed Artesia broke open its matchup with Mayfield Sat. afternoon at Field of Dreams by scoring 21 points in the second quarter for a 35-0 halftime lead, assuring a running clock. Neither team scored in the quickly paced second half. Mayfield was held to 107 yards of total offense while Artesia had 360 yards. . .Why is Socorro the No. 1 seed in the Class 3A playoffs? Defense. The Warriors posted their SEVENTH shutout in 10 regular season games Friday when they beat Cobre, 29-0, in a WTA district championship game. Last team to score on Socorro? Raton on Sept. 23, five games ago. . .St. Pius X (2-8) earned a berth in the 4A playoffs over Espanola Valley after blanking Grants, 23-0, on Thurs. night. . .After moving from Class 4A even though they reached the state championship game a season ago, Ruidoso (9-1) is the #2 seed in the Class 3A playoffs. QB [player_tooltip player_id='269582' first='Cooper' last='Pritchett'] threw for 247 yards and 3 TD as the Warrior beat Dexter, 43-6, in a District 3A-4 winner-take all championship game. . .Silver earned the No. 1 seed in Class 4A by beating Valencia, 13-0, in a defensive slugfest. The Valencia defense held Silver to less than 200 yards total offense but the Jaguars offense simply couldn't get much going against the underrated Silver defense. As a result, the path to the 4A title runs through Silver City.   First Round Playoff Matchups: The playoff brackets were announced Sat. night. Sunday, kickoff times for some of the games have been announced, per Maxpreps.     Class 6A   Los Lunas (9) at Cibola (8), Sat. 11/5, 1 p.m.   Atrisco Heritage (12) at Volcano Vista (5), Fri. 11/4, 7 p.m.   Alamogordo (11) at Rio Rancho (6), Fri. 11/4, 7 p.m.   Carlsbad (10) at Farmington (7), Sat. 11/5, Noon   Class 5A   Miyamura (9) at Valley (8), Sat. 11/5, 1 p.m.   Belen (12) at Deming (5), Fri. 11/4, 7 p.m.   Santa Teresa (11) at Mayfield (6), Fri. 11/4, 7 p.m.   Gadsden (10) at Los Alamos (7), Sat. 11/5, 1 p.m.   Class 4A   Valencia (9) at Aztec (8), Fri., 11/4, 6 p.m.   St. Pius X (12) at Portales (5), Fri. 11/4, 7 p.m.   Bernalillo (11) at Albuq. Academy (6), Fri. 11/4, 3 p.m.   Kirtland Central (10) at Moriarty (7), Fri., 11/4, 6 p.m.   Class 3A   Cobre (9) at Dexter (8), Sat. 11/5, 1 p.m.   Hope Christian (12) at Thoreau (5), Sat. 11/5, 1 p.m.   Hatch Valley (11) at Raton (6), Sat. 11/5, 1 p.m.   Newcomb (10) at West Las Vegas (6), Fri. 11/4, 6 p.m.   Class 2A (Quarterfinals)   Escalante (8) at Jal (1), Sat. 11/5, 1 p.m.   Estancia (5) at Eunice (4), Fri. 11/4, 7 p.m.   Loving (6) at Santa Rosa (3), Fri. 11/4, 7 p.m.   Tularosa (7) at Texico (2), Fri. 11/4, 7 p.m.   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/PrepRedzoneNM/status/1586224478601650176 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/PrepRedzoneNM/status/1586227128646803456 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/PrepRedzoneNM/status/1586230621050765313 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/PrepRedzoneNM/status/1586542448670437376 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/GadsdenPanthers/status/1586871154693664768 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/Alamogordo_AT/status/1586566196026974208 </div></figure>     <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/PrepRedzoneNM/status/1586558947367931904 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/MasonPosa/status/1586808993279664128 </div></figure>

Week 11 of the New Mexico High School football season is complete. Here is the final regular season edition of our Weekly Whiparound, which takes a deep dive into everything that happened on the field: