The injury bug has hit the Pojoaque Elks hard.
As they enter their district season, Pojoaque is down as many as 10 players, and battling through while losing several starters. By the third quarter of their last game, they had a freshman at quarterback and very little height at receiver.
“If you’re healthy for districts, it’s great,” said Pojoaque Coach Zeke Villegas. “But we’re not healthy right now. We’re just plugging away with what we got.”
The Elks (3-5) played strong on defense, but could never get their offense going successfully against Moriarty (5-3) in a 34-6 loss on Oct. 13. In the third-straight loss for Moriarty, they still showed improvements from where they were last year, when they lost 55-0 to the Pintos in a third-quarter mercy rule. But battered by injuries, Pojoaque will have to rebound through their final two games.
“We’re a little bummed, but we’re going to come back for the next two games, give it our all,” said junior receiver Andrew Martinez. “So we can finish the season off strong.”
Quarterback Ethan Meloy led the offense with 49 rushing yards on eight attempts. He completed three of 13 passes for 45 yards and one interception. Freshman quarterback Joshua Gonzales also played, and completed two of his three passes for 77 yards and a touchdown. Jonah Villegas was consistently a spark on special teams with long kick returns — he was credited with 168 yards on four returns, a 42-yard average.
“They’re making strides, they’re competing with teams,” Villegas said. “It’s one district game. We have two more to go. They did really well tonight, I’m proud of the team.”
Pojoaque’s lone score came early in the fourth quarter, when Gonzales on a broken play found Martinez, who broke free of the defense and scored a 70-yard touchdown.
“The play was broken,” Martinez said. “I seen (Gonzales) running around. I tried running back to see. And he just threw the ball.”
In the second half, with injuries piling up including multiple running backs, Meloy slid over to running back while Gonzales played behind center.
The Elks were less bothered by Moriarty scheduling them as their homecoming game.
“They thought they would 50 us by halftime,” Gonzales said. “That’s probably why they picked us. And it didn’t happen.”
Both teams went three-and-out and punted on their first drive. On Moriarty’s second drive, a few good runs resulted with a 20-yard touchdown and a 6-0 lead. Pojoaque punted again, and a fourth-down conversion ultimately led to a passing score on Moriarty’s first pass of the game, and they went up 13-0 early in the second quarter.
In the second quarter, a delay halted the game for 28 minutes as an ambulance came onto the field to treat a Moriarty player who appeared to suffer a bad leg injury on a kickoff. The player gave a thumbs-up to both sidelines as he was loaded into the ambulance.
Pojoaque nearly scored before the half, as on a fourth down Meloy found receiver Zeke Villegas in the corner of the end zone. But he was ruled past the line of scrimmage before throwing the illegal pass.
But the Elks kept Moriarty off the board, forcing turnovers on their next two drives. The second, an interception by Joaquin Baca, gave the Elks a shot at the end zone with 20 seconds left, but they threw an interception on the second play. Still, at 13-0, Pojoaque was happy with what they had done in the first half.
Taking the ball in the second half, Pojoaque punted, then recovered a Moriarty fumble, but lost the ball on their next snap. Moriarty went down and scored, Pojoaque turned the ball over on downs, and Moriarty scored again to go up 27-0.
After that deficit, Pojoaque got their touchdown, and Moriarty answered with their own touchdown to go up 34-6, the final score.
The Elks head back home next week for a big game on Friday against Taos (2-6), who is currently battling a 4-game losing streak with injuries of their own. Taos is slightly favored by MaxPreps’ algorithm, but they should provide openings for the Elks to move the ball on offense.
Should Pojoaque beat both Española and Taos, they would seemingly have a strong chance of making the state playoffs.
“I thought we held our own tonight again,” coach Zeke Villegas said. “I’m excited for next week. I think we match up well. We’ve just got to take care of the ball. Our defense has been doing their job the last two weeks. We’ve just got to get the offense rolling.”