Prep football: Class 6A state football semifinals preview

This week will almost certainly offer up the last taste of Friday Night Lights for the 2025 prep football season.

The majority of the playoff activity (9 of 11 games) in New Mexico is contained to Saturday afternoon. One of the two exceptions occurs at Wilson Stadium on Friday night, with the first of the Class 6A semifinals. The Class 8-Man championship game also is set for Friday.

A preview of the 6A semifinals:

No. 1 LAS CRUCES (11-0) vs. No. 5 LA CUEVA (10-2), 7 p.m. Friday, Wilson Stadium: This is the third straight November these two have squared off. The Bears won in the 2023 semifinals, and ousted the Bulldawgs in the 2024 semifinals, too.

La Cueva has won 10 straight since a sluggish 0-2 start.

“La Cueva probably deserved a higher seed. Personally, I had them as a 3 (seed),” Las Cruces coach Mark Lopez said.

The Bears are facing a Las Cruces team that played its worst game of the season a week ago. The Bulldawgs are coming off a sloppy 49-29 quarterfinal win over Los Lunas.

“We’re expecting their absolute best and most physical punch that they can give,” La Cueva coach Brandon Back said.

The Bulldawgs’ vaunted trio of offensive stars — quarterback Gunnar Guardiola, tailback Danny Amaro and receiver Francisco Winnikoff — have all enjoyed prodigious seasons, and nobody’s solved this triangle (en masse) yet.

“We kind of knew they would have a year like this,” Back said.

Asked if any one of the three required special attention, Back said it was Amaro, who has scored a combined 39 running and receiving TDs. On the ground, he’s over 1,600 yards with 36 scores.

“He’s their explosive big-play guy,” Back said. “He’s so patient, he likes to cut back a lot, with that three-headed monster, you have to take THAT head off first.”

Winnikoff (58 catches, 1,147 yards, 12 TDs) is as good as it gets when it comes to 6A receiving talent, and Guardiola has 23 scoring passes against just two picks.

Sophomore Chris Lopez for La Cueva has been the explosive element in the La Cueva offense, and the fast, sure-handed receiver was crucial last week in the Bears’ 24-21 quarterfinal win at Centennial.

“He’s their playmaker,” Lopez said.

Vaughn Saunders, a 6-2 junior, is going to assume a much larger role in the Bears’ ground game Friday, after a surgery-requiring ankle injury to J-Dylan Hathaway. Saunders provided one of the most clutch plays of the La Cueva season last week, a 40-yard run that led to a walkoff, game-winning field goal in the quarterfinals against Centennial.

“He’s gonna bring a different look,” Back said.

Which might become a La Cueva advantage.

“I think the most important thing for us, our whole thing is, and every year really, is, it’s not about who we’re playing,” Back said. “It’s about how we’re playing.”

No. 2 CLEVELAND (10-1) vs. No. 3 HOBBS (9-2), 1 p.m. Saturday, Cleveland High School: The Eagles have had a handful of playoff games in Rio Rancho against the Storm over the years, but none of them carried the weight of this final four matchup, as it pits the defending state champions against a program that hasn’t been this far in the playoffs since 1982. Hobbs, which dispatched Carlsbad in the first round, last played in a title game in 1981, which was the same year famed running back Timmy Smith, then a senior, set the state single-season rushing mark.

And it is here, with that newby factor, that Hobbs faces perhaps its most significant hurdle, as a large number of Storm players have already been through a few postseason environments.

“That experience,” Cleveland coach Robert Garza said, “it goes a long way. … I’m really counting on those guys to use that experience.”

That is just part of the equation. The Storm also feature what is arguably 6A’s top quarterback in senior Jordan Hatch (33 touchdowns versus just four interceptions), plus a defense that has played exceptionally well since the team’s only loss, a mid-September 38-34 decision at home to Las Cruces.

It’s been seven wins in a row since then.

“Our hands are definitely gonna be full with these guys,” Hobbs coach Ken Stevens said.

Chief among the Eagles’ priorities, Stevens said, is to match Cleveland’s physicality up front and establish a strong ground attack. Hobbs can’t afford to let Hatch (with a gaudy 74% completion rate) and his top targets — Jacob Maldonado, Evan Nañez and Ajay Vigil — stack aerial chunk plays.

“We’ve won games because we’ve been able to control the front,” Stevens said. “Defensively, we’re gonna have to make them earn everything.”

Cleveland’s defense, which has 10 seniors, faces its own challenge in Hobbs junior quarterback Junior Medrano, who’s been a prolific dual-threat QB. He’s thrown for 1,679 yards and 20 touchdowns, and rushed for 1,439 yards and 16 scores.

The Eagles do feature a terrific senior duo of receivers Justice French and Braddock Beaty, who have combined for 78 receptions and 13 touchdowns.

8-MAN FINAL: No. 1 seed Fort Sumner/House (10-0) is home to the two-time defending state champion, No. 2 Melrose (10-2), at 7 p.m. Friday. This has long been one of the top regional rivalries in the state — only 35 miles separates them — but oddly enough, they did not play one another in the regular season, and they didn’t face off in 2024, either.