For the second straight week, Española Valley football did not play a second half.
The Sundevils have now scored 116 points in their last two games, winning both by more than 50 points in the first half, scoring that many points in just 32 total minutes of game time. Facing easier defenses than they had to start the season, their offense cruises along with a strong rushing attack.
Española (3-3) defeated Santa Fe Indian School (1-5) 59-6 on Sept. 22 in a game that ended at halftime. The Sundevils scored touchdowns on eight of their 14 offensive plays, and never faced a third down.
“Now they’re getting confidence, and they’re ready to go into this next four-game stretch,” Wilder said. “They’re going to be really tough teams that we’re going to play. But they’re excited to go in and play those games.”
One of the biggest storylines of the season has been the presence of junior Andres Valenzuela, potentially the best high-school kicker in the state. Valenzuela was born in 2007, the year that Española last made a field goal before he joined the team.
This year, Valenzuela is perfect on 17 extra-point attempts, including 14-for-14 in the last two weeks. His four made field goals lead the state, and his 43-yard kick is the longest in New Mexico this season, according to MaxPreps. And in his first year playing football, he keeps improving; Valenzuela said he made a 60-yard kick in practice.
When Valenzuela moved from Arizona, he joined the JROTC team. That team’s coach noticed his speed, and sent him out to run track. Wilder was an assistant on the track team; in their conversation, Valenzuela mentioned playing soccer. Española Valley does not have a soccer team, but Wilder’s first question was if he could kick a football.
Valenzuela said he had never tried, so Wilder (who, naturally, has a football on him) had him see what would happen. What Wilder saw was, “BOOM!”
“When they started practicing in June, coach told me to come,” he said. “I kicked it from the 30 (yard line). And I made it. And he told me to come to the team.”
Starting quarterback Irvin Primero remembered how Valenzuela would motivate the team in summer practices by kicking field goals while wearing tennis shoes.
Valenzuela quickly has become a team favorite, with the way they cheer for him after making a touchdown-saving tackle on a kickoff (the first of his career), or shout him out in the postgame huddle.
“You never know the people that are going to make your team rally,” Wilder said.
Adrick DeLeon went off for 150 yards, and he scored touchdowns on five of his seven carries. Primero completed all three of his passes for 67 yards and one touchdown to Abraham Tamayo.
Primero took over as the team’s starting quarterback, and will remain so for the rest of the season after starter Alex Chavez will require shoulder surgery, having missed all but a couple of quarters on the season. Primero was expected to be the junior varsity quarterback for his sophomore year, but was called up and so far has answered in limited quantities.
“My team, they just bring me motivation to do this,” Primero said. “They bring me up to the occasion.”
The Sundevils made football look easy from the first play of the game, a 45-yard touchdown (before which was a long kickoff return). The Braves fumbled on their first play of the game, and their second drive ended with a safety on a sack by Leonard Williams. With Española’s long kick returns and turnovers, no play started past the Braves’ 30 yard line until the score was 30-0 seven minutes into the game.
The Braves had one scoring drive, spawned by a long kickoff return. Valenzuela was the only defender preventing a touchdown after a kickoff, and he pushed a returner out of bounds. He returned to the opposite sideline to big cheers from the team (though the Braves ultimately capitalized on the long return for a score).
Española next week faces perhaps its biggest game of the season next week. The Sundevils travel to Kirtland Central (2-3), a team that made the state tournament a year ago. A win is seemingly a must if the Sundevils want to make the playoffs.
“If we want to be a playoff team, we’ve got to go compete with Kirtland Central, we’ve got to compete with those teams,” Wilder said.
While Valenzuela has speed that could be useful on other parts on the football field as well, he will remain only the team’s designated kicker.
“I promised your parents that all you were gonna do is kick,” Wilder tells him. “I don’t want to get you hurt.”