While five fumbles weren’t in the notes, almost everything went according to script for the Española Valley High School football team Friday night against homecoming opponent Cuba.
Many Sundevil fans were hoping and predicting a game against the Rams as a time-shortened race to 50 points, but a full 48-minute contest meant that many Española Valley reserves gained some necessary playing time and that experience may pay off later in the season.
That’s the way head coach Tylon Wilder liked it.
“Brilliance in the basics,” he said after the Sundevils’ 42-7 victory. “It’s a saying from the Marine Corps. We only ran five plays, but we want to run those plays right and we got a lot of good experience for our ‘twos’ and ‘threes.’ I know a lot (Sundevil) fans and students were talking about us scoring 50 on Cuba, but a lot players wouldn’t have seen the field if we had a shortened game. We may need those players to play more as the season goes on.”
Not in the script was Victor Parra’s fumble lost on Española Valley’s first play, but the speedy senior atoned for that miscue with scoring runs of 70 and 32 yards. Parra, who muscled and sprinted his way to 194 yards in Española Valley season-opening victory at Los Alamos, gained 129 yards in six carries against Cuba (0-2).
“No one is harder on himself than Victor,” Wilder said. “And no one felt worse than he did on that fumble. I’m not going to get down on him. All I can do is give him the ball again.”
Parra had three of the team’s next six carries during the Sundevils’ ensuing series, ending with the senior scoring, untouched from 32 yards out and the rout was on.
“We can fix the fumbles,” Wilder said of Española’s seven fumbles in its first two games. “We’re going to work on it in practice. It’s (due to) a lack of focus. We’re going to improve our focus during practice this week.”
Three of the Sundevil turnovers occurred during time when reserves were playing significant minutes.
Española Valley junior Mikey Maestas ran the Sundevil offense for several series and while Maestas did have a turnover, he also had a 63-yard touchdown run and a 19-yard scoring scamper immediately after his 3rd-quarter interception. Maestas also picked off another Rams’ pass.
“It was our plan to have (starting quarterback senior) Irvin (Primero) run the offense the first two series, then have Mikey come in for the next two,” Wilder said of the elusive junior. “We needed to get Mikey some reps in game conditions. We don’t know what may happen later in the season. If Irvin gets hurt, we wanted Mikey to have the experience of running the offense now because we never know when we are going to need him (as a quarterback) later. There are different cadences with different guys in there, so there’s different timing. I think he did a good job, especially for someone who didn’t play last year and got hurt after only playing one game the year before.”
Española Valley handed the ball off to 11 different players behind its bruising offensive line. In addition to that bevy of ball carriers, the Sundevils almost shocked the fans by attempting a forward pass for the first time this season.
“We had to put that on film,” Wilder said of the play-action pass to show upcoming opponents that the Sundevils can and will throw the ball. “We didn’t want to run up the score, but it was the right call at the right time and both receivers were open.”
Primero threw a nice spiral to Cody Coffeen for an easy 21-yard touchdown. The Sundevils ran the ball 61 times in its first game.
“We got some good lessons out of this game,” Wilder said. “We have a lot of kids (in the program) who have not played in a varsity game. Now, they got that experience. That’s valuable training.”
He expects that training to be utilized Thursday as Santa Fe’s Capital High (0-2) visits Sundevil Stadium. The New Mexico Activities Association Class 5A Jaguars, 37-0 losers to Santa Fe St. Michael’s last week, have yet to score a touchdown this season.
“We know that they are going to come into the game super hungry,” Wilder said. “And it will be the last game for before district play (starts) for both teams. We know that they are going to compete and they’ll be looking to right the ship.”