Fort Sumner defeats Logan

FORT SUMNER - The Logan football team won't have an undefeated season in 2021. Fort Sumner - especially quarterback Joaquin Segura - made sure of that.

Segura threw for more than 220 yards and six touchdowns and rushed for another 67 yards to power the Foxes to a 46-0 victory over the previously unbeaten Longhorns in eight-man gridiron action Friday. Clay Norman caught five of Segura's passes for 110 yards and four touchdowns in the district showdown.

Though Segura would have made a Logan victory difficult, its six turnovers made it impossible. The Longhorns lost three of five fumbles and were intercepted three times.

"You can't turn the ball over 17 times ... I haven't looked at how many times it actually was," Logan coach Dwayne Roberts said. "We moved the ball good at times, but we can't keep turning it over."

Roberts didn't entertain the notion a slick ball because of wet grass from rains earlier that day and dew as night approached.

"You can't blame the ball," he said. "We made some good plays on defense, and we don't make those turnovers, it's a different game. We're going to have to fix the turnover problem. I thought we matched up good with them, but you cant turn the ball over against a good team like this. They'll make you pay.

"When things didn't go good and their heads started hanging, it was a rough night," he added.

Fort Sumner, bouncing back after a 58-50 loss the previous week at perennial powerhouse and district foe Melrose, improved to 6-1 overall. Logan fell to 6-1.

"We're starting to come around," Fort Sumner coach Brad Holland said of his team. "We had to bounce back from last week. We had a tough one, a hard-fought one. We have to clean some things up in the (offensive) line; we're taking too many hits in the pocket. But I was proud of our effort."

Holland was asked what his team worked on after the loss to Melrose.

"We've been working on technique," he replied. "We were missing blocks and lunging too much. We still did it quite a bit tonight, but we played hard, and I think we're heading in the right direction."

Logan made two interceptions against Segura, both by Isaiah Kneitz. Roberts said any sort of defensive success Logan had against Fort Sumner's passing attack came when his players put pressure on the quarterback.

"He had a good night throwing, and we didn't get back there enough to disrupt him," Roberts said. "When we did get back there, he didn't make the throw. When we gave him the time, he was sitting back there and making good throws."

The Foxes led 34-0 at halftime.

Logan experienced a miserable night on offense, totaling minus-16 yards overall. The Foxes made 12 tackles for a loss, including several on Logan's bad snaps that led to huge losses of yardage.

The Longhorns received an early spark from the speedy Hayden Judd, who made two kick returns for 94 yards. The Foxes began to kick away from him, and at the line of scrimmage they bottled Judd up for just 18 yards on 11 carries.

One referee near the sidelines who had covered games as far away as Albuquerque said Fort Sumner was the hardest-hitting team he'd seen all season.

That revelation pleased Holland.

"When we're playing good, we're flying around as a defense," he said.

Logan's next game is at Mesilla Valley Christian at 7 p.m. Friday at Las Cruces. Melrose defeated Mesilla Valley 54-0 on Friday to drop the SonBlazers to 3-2 overall.