A goodbye to prep football and to the fall

It’s time to put a bow on another prep football season. Let’s get to it.

ON TOP: A hearty congrats to the seven state champions, and the No. 1 seeds had a pretty robust November, La Cueva notwithstanding.

The No. 1s went 6-1 in the finals, with victories by Roswell (5A), Bloomfield (4A), St. Michael’s (3A), Texico (2A), Melrose (8-Man) and Logan (6-Man).

St. Mike’s went back-to-back, and was undefeated. Texico went back-to-back, and was undefeated. Melrose went back-to-back, and was undefeated. Logan was undefeated. Roswell got some payback. The best kind of payback.

That sextet of champs was joined by the third-seeded Cleveland Storm, the conquerors of Class 6A.

Cleveland knocked out undefeated Centennial in the semifinals, and then topped undefeated La Cueva in Saturday’s title game. The Storm beat those two teams by a combined score of 82-28. Just think for a moment about that jaws-agape margin. Cleveland fashioned some seriously impressive football at the end of November.

Which is nothing new. Cleveland has four blue trophies in the last five full seasons. The Storm and La Cueva have combined for the last six 6A championships. As I noted in my game preview the other day, these two schools are the first to meet in three consecutive big-school finals going back to 1953.

Cleveland will have some key pieces, like quarterback Jordan Hatch, returning in 2025.

WHAT IF?: Look, I believed Cleveland was playing the best football of any 6A team when the playoffs began. Said this to anyone who would listen. I believed the same thing about La Cueva before its championship run during the 2023 playoffs.

But there is no way to reflect on Saturday’s 26-8 Cleveland win without talking, at least briefly, about the right knee of Cam Dyer.

The La Cueva senior quarterback, in the final game of his sensational career, gutted his way through a bum knee, and Cam had some good moments Saturday. But anyone who has watched Dyer knows the young man was not at 100%. I think from where I was sitting, we were getting maybe two-thirds of what Cam Dyer brings to the table. He hurt the knee in the semifinals against Las Cruces. This was New Mexico’s best offensive player this season.

“It was just how much pain he could handle,” La Cueva coach Brandon Back said. “He was nowhere near 100%. He’s got a very bad bruise on top of his tibia, which is hard to push off on. But he did everything he needed to do to get us in this position.”

This was the only time I’ve ever watched Dyer where he was not the best QB on the field. Cleveland’s Hatch was 14-of-23 for 165 yards and two touchdowns, and no turnovers. Cleveland’s defense intercepted Dyer twice, and forced him into a fumble on a sack. Two of those three turnovers led to 10 Storm points. Cam didn’t complete his first pass Saturday until his FIFTEENTH attempt.

There’s no way to deny this: Saturday would have looked markedly different with a fully healthy Cam Dyer. How much different is the question that can never be answered.

Side note: I asked veteran Cleveland defensive coordinator Eddie Kilmer about Dyer. His guess was that Dyer was at about 70%.

“And 70% of him is better than most,” Kilmer said.

FLIP SIDE: While Dyer’s right knee did certainly hinder La Cueva’s offensive output, it is only fair, and just, to point out how beastly that Cleveland defense was Saturday. The entire postseason, really. The duration of the second half of the season. That unit held both Centennial and La Cueva to season lows in points, and by a lot.

“Their defense played lights out,” Back said. “We just made too many mistakes and things didn’t bounce our way. And it did for them and that’s why they (held) up the blue trophy.”

“Our defense,” Cleveland receiver Jacob Maldonado said, “it’s the best defense in the state.”

From Hatch: “I stand by it that they’re the best defense in the state.”

Maldonado celebrated with a certain edge Saturday; he began his prep career at La Cueva before transferring to Cleveland.

“I knew this was where I needed to be. This is where I deserved to be,” he told me when I asked him why he transferred. “Best move I ever made.”

LA CUEVA P.S.: It was in just about every way a magnificent season for the Bears, whose 12 victories included that memorable double overtime win in Flagstaff back in Week 2 against Pinnacle High from Phoenix.

Dyer was a marvel.

Mason Posa, too. Goodness, was there any player in this state capable of influencing a football game in all three phases in such a major way as Posa? (Rhetorical question, by the way.)

That duo is going to be missed, by all of us. Dyer is headed next month to Arizona State. Posa, primarily a wrecking ball of a linebacker, still has wrestling season ahead, but he surely is in the conversation as among the best defensive players New Mexico has ever produced.

EVERYTHING ELSE: November saw champions crowned in all the four fall sports. Gianna Rahmer capped another dominant season running for Eldorado. Centennial didn’t get that elusive football title, but the school can take solace in a dramatic and thrilling boys soccer championship that was decided on a goal in the 100th minute against La Cueva.

Girls soccer dynasties continued at Hope Christian and Sandia Prep. Las Cruces High repeated as 5A volleyball champions. Tiny Quemado won state in volleyball for the first time since 1977.

The citizens of Ruidoso endured fire and flood this year. Many Roswell families also faced awful flooding this fall. The runners of Laguna-Acoma ran at state in memory of their coach, Daniel Otero, who died just days before the state meet. Hawk runners paid tribute to the man as they crossed the finish line.

Prep sports does increasingly have a business aspect to it that rubs me the wrong way.

But it also has a deeply felt humanity to it, a piercing sense of belonging and community that I cherish and admire greatly.

Winter athletes, you’re up.