Cleveland dominates La Cueva to claim 6A football title

The sum of this victory’s parts were almost equal to the end result for the Cleveland Storm.

A dash of masterful trickery here, an incredibly fortunate bounce there. An opposing quarterback not at full strength, a stout defense that was superb. And the key momentum swings tilting Cleveland’s direction, too.

The third-seeded Storm (12-1) captured the Class 6A football championship with an accumulation of many things, adding up to a never-in-doubt 26-8 victory over No. 1 La Cueva (12-1) on Saturday afternoon at Wilson Stadium.

“Unbelievable team effort,” Cleveland coach Robert Garza said. “This team, we’re gonna look back on them as a group of guys that came together and got it done. We had a bunch of guys play unbelievable football.”

La Cueva’s 12-game winning streak to start the 2024 prep football season put the Bears in a position to finish perfect on Saturday.

But it was Cleveland’s 12-game winning streak to end the year that was larger. And Cleveland has its fourth blue trophy in the last five seasons, to go with titles in 2019, 2021 and 2022.

La Cueva whipped Cleveland in Rio Rancho in the final last November. But the Storm had the upper hand throughout this renewal.

“La Cueva, they’re a great team, but our team outplayed them,” Storm senior safety AJ Manning said. He was one of many Storm players who had a key role.

Defenses were in control for the first quarter and a half.

The Cleveland defense forced a La Cueva punt midway through the second quarter, with the Bears kicking from their goal line.

A short kick was helped along when the Bears interfered with the returner. With the 15-yard penalty tacked on, Cleveland started that drive at the La Cueva 28. Quarterback Jordan Hatch hit Jon Baca on a 20-yard pass to get the Storm to the 5, and they scored two plays later.

Hatch bootlegged to his right and found an open Angel Gallegos in the back of the end zone for a 3-yard touchdown with 3:52 to go before halftime.

“I was supposed to give it to the tight end, but they drove on it, and Angel just came open in the back of the end zone,” Hatch said.

What followed was one of the two aforementioned crucial momentum swings.

Cleveland’s ensuing shallow pooch kick was not covered by La Cueva. Cleveland capitalized and covered it themselves, and were right back at the Bears’ 28.

“They caught us in a situation where we were trying to set up a return,” La Cueva coach Brandon Back said. “They kicked it a little more shallow than we expected, and caught us off guard.”

Five plays later, Juan Muñoz — who moments earlier rumbled for 21 yards to the La Cueva 7 — scored on a 1-yard run. The PAT was pulled left, but it was 13-0 Storm with two touchdowns within 70 seconds of each other.

“That pooch kick was unbelievable,” Garza said. “Football is a crazy game. You don’t know which way it’s gonna bounce.”

Cleveland got it back yet again before halftime, and Ivan Sanchez Ramirez booted a 31-yard field goal in the last minute for a 16-0 lead at intermission. La Cueva hadn’t been in a hole this large since the second half of its game against Phoenix’s Pinnacle High back in Week 2 in Flagstaff.

And what’s more, it was clear that Cam Dyer, the Bears’ star senior quarterback, was not at 100%.

Dyer did not look fully himself running the ball, though he was sporadically effective when he tucked and ran, coming off a right knee injury suffered in the state semifinals last week against Las Cruces.

Passing, Dyer was 0-for-12 with an interception in the first half.

Still, La Cueva was down only two scores, and got the ball to begin the third quarter. But Manning intercepted Dyer on the second snap of the half.

Four plays later, the Storm went deep into the playbook.

A perfectly executed flea flicker culminated with a 55-yard touchdown pass from Hatch to Jacob Maldonado, and a commanding 23-0 lead.

“We’ve just been working that, working that, keeping it undercover,” a smiling Maldonado said. “We knew it was the right time and we had to take advantage of that. All year, since we started spring ball, we’ve been working on that play.”

Cleveland had run that same flicker several times earlier this season, Garza said.

“He was wide open. Just a layup,” Hatch said.

That was the only completed pass for Cleveland in the second half, as the Storm was content to run the ball with a sizable lead.

The Cleveland defense held La Cueva to 61 yards in the first half, 181 for the game (compared to 324 for the Storm), and shut out the Bears for 40 minutes.

Dyer threw a TD pass with 8 minutes to go; those were the final points of the game.

“Unexplainable,” Manning said of the Storm defense. “What can I say about them?”

Hatch knew what to say.

“We had a slow start, but our defense came through big, gave us some points, and we were able to capitalize and come out on top.”

La Cueva and Cleveland were playing in the championship game for the third straight year (unprecedented in the state’s largest division) and fourth time overall going back to 2018.

They are 2-2. Both of the Storm’s wins came at Wilson Stadium, both of La Cueva’s wins came at Cleveland.

La Cueva had won 22 consecutive games prior to Saturday. The Bears’ last loss came in early September 2023 to Centennial.

Into the eye of the Storm: A look at Cleveland's 6A football title