Prep football: Who is primed to win the 2025 NMAA Football State Championship semifinals in Classes 5A-2A?

Albuquerque has a single team remaining in the Class 4A, 3A and 2A state playoff brackets as the postseason hits the semifinals in all those divisions. In 5A, can anyone interrupt a third straight Artesia-Roswell final?

A preview of Saturday afternoon’s 2A-5A semis:

CLASS 5A: For the second straight year, all the semifinalists originate from the southern district, and three of the four — Artesia, Roswell, Gadsden — are here for the second straight year. Lovington completes the quartet.

The fourth-seeded Wildcats (7-4) are home at 1 p.m. Saturday to No. 1 Artesia (10-1) in a semi, and this game is in Lovington because the last time the rivals met in the semis or later was at Bulldog Bowl in the 1994 state final. This is Lovington’s first time as a semifinalist in the 5A division.

No. 2 seed Roswell (8-3) is in Anthony, N.M., to play sixth-seeded Gadsden (8-4), which is hosting a state semifinal game for the first time in 59 years and is the highest-seeded team left in any bracket. These two played a semifinal in Roswell last November, and the Panthers are home Saturday at 2 p.m.

Artesia routed Lovington 56-23 in late September, but Wildcats coach Josh Bailey said his group is running the ball better than it was in the first half of the season, “and that always gives you a better chance to win games. … Offensively, we have to be a little better.”

Lovington, Bailey said, must have a huge game from senior dual-threat QB Jayden Gutierrez, who tweaked his ankle early in these two teams’ first meeting. Artesia took advantage of several short fields that came off defense or special teams errors by the Wildcats.

But the Bulldogs are the most explosive team in 5A, led by senior quarterback Derrick Warren (2,442 yards, 35 TDs, six picks) and senior tailback Bryce Parra (1,089 yards, 16 scores).

For Roswell, which beat Gadsden 33-14 in district play, senior quarterback Luke Lynn already has multiple college offers and has combined for 27 rush and pass scores.

The Coyotes scored the first 21 points in the first meeting, but Roswell coach Jeff Lynn said he’d like to see his group tighten things up defensively in the rematch.

“It becomes a cat-and-mouse-game,” Lynn said. “A little bit of a chess match. It’s hard to beat a team twice.”

While senior Juan Rios (1,420 yards, 14 TDs) spearheads the Gadsden ground attack, the Panthers are actually deep at that position and have four backs who have scored a minimum of six touchdowns this season.

CLASS 4A: Everything this season has been pointing to a repeat of the 2024 Bloomfield-St. Pius state final, and the last remaining obstacles to this are Taos and Chaparral (8-3). Unfortunately, the odds are stacked against that duo, since the Tigers and Lobos lost to the Bobcats and Sartans by a combined 102 points in the regular season.

No. 2 seed St. Pius (9-1) blasted the third-seeded Lobos 50-0 (in a single half) at Milne Stadium in mid-October. The top-seeded Bobcats (10-1) rolled No. 4 Taos 65-13.

“Our mission is to just stay with them,” Taos coach Johnny Olguin said. “See how long we can stay with them.”

What Olguin wants, he said, is to someday soon transform the Tigers (7-4) — who had a thrilling 25-24 quarterfinal win over Albuquerque Academy after a long touchdown pass with 12 seconds to go — into a program with Bloomfield-type prowess.

Taos has won six straight after losing to Bloomfield in the regular season, with most of those wins coming against playoff-caliber opponents.

Bloomfield has an incredibly diverse attack and a multitude of valuable and dependable options both on the ground and in the air. Quarterback Manual Chavarria has thrown 42 touchdown passes and has only turned it over by interception five times. The Bloomfield ground game averages 175 yards a game.

In the first St. Pius-Chaparral game, all of the Sartans’ offensive standouts contributed heavily, including junior quarterback Isaiah Carpenter, junior tailback Hershul Olloway Jr., and receiver Cayl Cox-Liggins.

St. Pius has averaged close to 51 points in its last five games, including a 48-7 win in the quarterfinals over Grants.

Chaparral, which is 2-2 over its last four games, edged Moriarty 42-41 in overtime in the quarters with a failed PAT by the Pintos the difference. Lobos senior quarterback Israel Nieto has been a consistent threat in the air and on the ground, combining for 34 touchdowns.

CLASS 3A: No. 1 St. Michael’s and No. 2 Dexter are hosting semifinal games on Saturday. The Horsemen (11-0) play host to No. 5 New Mexico Military Institute (8-4) at 1 p.m., while the Demons (9-1) welcome No. 3 Hope Christian (8-3), also at 1 p.m.

NMMI hasn’t had much playoff success of late with St. Mike’s, having been beaten by the Horsemen in each of the last two 3A semifinals.

St. Michael’s has dominated this season with a physical ground game and a stifling defense. Quarterback Kamal Stith and tailback Isaiah Dominguez, both seniors, have combined for almost 1,500 yards and 29 rushing scores for St. Mike’s.

And that Horsemen defense has only yielded 64 points total in 11 victories. This group gives virtually nothing.

Hope is up against a Dexter squad, which graduated the large majority of its starters from last season, and Huskies coach Fernando Salinas described the Demons as big, speedy and athletic.

“They’re real excited,” Salinas said of his team. “We’ve been the underdogs all year long. Nobody expected us to be here.”

Hope’s defense must contend with a Dexter run offense that has produced 44 touchdowns so far this season.

Meanwhile, the Huskies’ backfield is thin following a recent injury, and this adds to the burden for Hope’s outstanding quarterback, RJ Montoya.

“To me, that’s their engine,” Dexter coach Sonny Duran said. “He makes things happen — in the pocket, outside the pocket. That is our No. 1 concern.”

Duran added of the Huskies, “I see a fast team, I see a physical team, I see an organized team.”

Dexter is undefeated against 3A competition this fall.

CLASS 2A: One of the most remarkable facts about any division this weekend is this: neither Legacy Academy, located on Albuquerque’s West Side, nor Hozho Academy, a small charter school in Gallup, even has their own practice field. And the two programs, combined, have only five seasons of 11-Man football.

But here the Academies are, among the final four that also includes perennial 2A juggernauts Texico and Eunice.

“We know it’ll be a fight,” said Cyle Balok, head coach of the fourth-seeded Wolves, “and it’ll take every ounce we have. We’re gonna go give ‘em hell, man.”

Fourth-seeded Hozho Academy (9-2) is at No. 1 Texico (7-3) at 1 p.m. Saturday. The Wolverines are the defending state champions.

The Wolves have seniors for the first time, and will face their toughest test of their prep careers in this road trip across the state to Texico. Hozho Academy practices at one of the city baseball fields in Gallup. Last week in the quarters, the Wolves held off Raton 49-47, with the Tigers missing a game-tying 2-point conversion late in the game.

Sophomore Cross Figg leads the Texico attack; the dual-threat QB has been especially effective running the ball, with over 1,500 yards and 15 scores.

No. 3 Eunice (8-2) heads north to face Legacy Academy (10-1) at 1 p.m. Saturday at Bernalillo High. Both Legacy and Hozho won their first-ever playoff games last week in the quarterfinals.

For Legacy, senior QB Lorenzo Sedillo-Urban has proven to be effective both running and throwing the ball; Xander Chavez is the Silverbacks’ top runner and Legacy has an outstanding multi-purpose athlete in receiver/returner Jay Lee.

On the other side of the ball, the Silverbacks defense has been performing at a high level.

The solid Legacy Academy defense faces its most potent threat this week in Eunice senior quarterback Elijan Melancon, who has thrown for 2,400 yards with 36 touchdowns.

“He has a really strong arm. He’s smart, he’s experienced … he’s the one that makes it happen for them,” Silverbacks coach Joey Romero said.

Just as Romero points out, Melancon fuels the Cardinals.

“We know we can move the ball well against anybody,” Eunice coach Greg Jackson said. “We feel confident in that.”

The Cardinals ran it a season high 50 times for 365 yards in a quarterfinal win over Santa Rosa, so the offense doesn’t fall exclusively on Melancon’s right arm.

“Our defense has to show up and be just as physical as we’ve been week in and week out,” Romero said.