Bulldawgs take advantage of opportunities to advance

When a championship season is on the line, it’s usually the team that can capitalize on its chances that finishes on top. If that is the criteria for a championship season, the Las Cruces High football team may be on to something this year.

The top-seeded Bulldawgs (11-0) found a way in a 49-29 win over Los Lunas Friday night at the Field of Dreams. Next up is a rematch with the La Cueva team that ended their championship plans a year ago. This rematch will take place in Albuquerque since last year’s semifinal clash took place at Field of Dreams.

To get there, Las Cruces survived the bizarre twists and turns of a game that featured almost everything, including the Bulldawgs recovering their own kickoff when Los Lunas failed to secure the ball on its own 1-yard-line it thought was headed for the end zone.

When his team gathered Saturday to begin preparation for La Cueva, head coach Mark Lopez the nature of the win.

“I talked to the guys this morning about this, and I told them at this time of the year, fortunately, we've been in this situation a lot of times in our program over the years, and you understand that there's no such thing as an ugly advance. You either advance or you don't. They get another week and an opportunity to play in the semis against another good team, exactly what we wanted it to be.”

In the end, while the game was extremely tight heading into the fourth quarter, the Bulldawgs scored 21 fourth-period points to make the final margin look more comfortable than it may have been.

“I think good teams take advantage of opportunities,” Lopez said. “When those opportunities are presented, however they're presented, you’ve got to be in position to take advantage of them. Whether it's a weird kickoff or penalties or

whatever, you’ve just got to grind through.”

Los Lunas took the early advantage with a touchdown on its first possession of the game, but the Bulldawgs used a trick play to answer, a halfback pass from Daniel Amaro to Francisco Winnikoff to level the score.

The Bulldawgs used big plays to increase their lead to 21-7, a pick-6 by Hunter Parmeter and an 82-yard TD toss from Gunnar Guardiola to Winnikoff. It appeared they would increase the advantage, but a fumble on the 1-yard-line changed that.

Los Lunas responded with a scoring drive and had a chance to tie the game at intermission, but Las Cruces stymied a quarterback running play just short of the goal line on the half’s final play.

Each team lost interceptions to roughing the passer calls, with an apparent Tiger interception return for a TD called back on their personal foul.

The contest changed in the fourth quarter when that strange uncovered kickoff set up Daniel Amaro for his second rushing touchdown in two plays, and a seven-point margin turned into 21 for Las Cruces. Amaro scored one more time to put the game on ice and send the Bulldawgs into the semifinals against La Cueva, a 24-21 winner over Centennial Saturday.

Amaro finished the day with 95 yards on the ground, while Guardiola passed for 291. Winnikoff finished with five receptions for 137 yards.

The semifinal matchup at fifth-seeded La Cueva takes place Friday, Nov. 21, at 7 p.m. Lopez is excited for the challenge.

“I like the matchup,” he said. “They’re always just incredibly talented, obviously a very successful program. We’re obviously playing a very talented team.

“I think for us, we need to be better at what we do. It’s going to be one of those weeks where you’ve got to do simple better, you’ve got to engage blocks, take the game to them.”

His message to his team as it prepares for Friday night is simple. Do what they do and let the rest take care of itself.

“That's going to be the message throughout the week,” Lopez said. “Don't worry about anything that you can't control. Don't worry about weather, don't worry about officials, don't worry about fans, don't worry about what they're saying. Don't worry about any of that stuff. Let's worry about what we can take care of and what we can control. And when we do that, we know we're a pretty darn good football team.”