NMMI takes district title

A playoff-bound New Mexico Military Institute football team captured a district title with a solid 42-11 victory Friday over Tucumcari in the regular-season finale at Roswell.

NMMI improved to 7-2 overall and 3-0 in Class 3A’s District 4. The Colts, a fifth seed in the playoffs, face Thoreau (6-3) in its first-round game this weekend.

Tucumcari ended its season at 1-9, 0-3.

The Colts seized leads of 13-0 in the first quarter and 28-3 at halftime.

Tucumcari scored its only points during the half on a short field goal by Matthew Calbert early in the second period.

“The sad thing was we had the ball on the 2-yard line and had to kick the field goal,” Rattlers coach Wayne Ferguson said. “We had three negative (yardage) plays in a row that moved us back.”

Tucumcari scored its only touchdown on a fourth-quarter running play by eighth-grader Daymion Urioste that Ferguson said was about 20 yards.

Ferguson, who used younger and speedier players in the last half of the season, mixed up his backfield some more Friday when senior Charles Prieto returned to the lineup after being out for weeks with a shoulder injury.

“We played well at times and didn’t play well at times,” Ferguson said about his team’s performance Friday. “We had more speed in the backfield than we had all year. We had some success; the Institute had taken out some starters, which let us have some success.

“Of course, NMMI is good; they’re the district champions. But we played better against them for the whole game than we did against Dexter or Hope (Christian).”

Tucumcari’s struggles on both sides of the ball Friday gave Ferguson a bad sense of deja vu.

“It was the same situation: We were just kind of undermanned and real young in areas, and it was a rough year because of that,” he said. “We were relying on people who haven’t played football in a long time and having young kids in positions you shouldn’t have to utilize for a varsity team. It reflects how our season went.

“We don’t have a lot of depth, and we don’t have a lot of size,” he added. “And the size we do have was with kids that weren’t eligible. We’re going to have to tell everybody if they’re going to decide to be athletes, they’re going to have to do what it takes to be an athlete. We just don’t have that total commitment yet. They just want to be athletes sometimes.”

The Rattlers lost seven in a row to close the season, but Ferguson pointed out seven of their opponents made the playoffs. An eighth team – Santa Rosa – just missed a berth in Class 2A.

Tucumcari’s lone win, however, was one its players will remember fondly for years – a 12-7 triumph over Loving that was decided on a 45-yard touchdown pass on the final play of the game.

The Rattlers lose 10 seniors from this year’s squad.

“I told them after the game I appreciated it all,” Ferguson said of those players. “Some of them I had for four years; some of them I had for one year. That’s kind of indicative of our season.

“Usually when you have seniors, you want them to be seasoned veterans. I didn’t particularly have that. I had seniors who weren’t bad athletes but hadn’t played football since they were in seventh grade or freshman year. Experience-wise, they were freshmen and sophomores. Their athletic ability shows at times, but the football knowledge was lacking to be able to compete with the schedule we had.”