Rio Rancho beats Volcano Vista, and needs overtime to do it

Sometimes, this is the way the math works in football.

Take the seventh-ranked Rio Rancho Rams, for example, a team that never led, not even for one second, through 48 minutes of their crucial District 1-6A showdown against No. 3-ranked Volcano Vista.

But they won the overtime, they won the night, and they won the most important game of their season.

Quarterback Micah Takahashi’s 8-yard run on third down in OT put the Rams ahead, and the Rio Rancho defense moments later stood extremely tall on a 2-point conversion try by the Hawks as the Rams escaped the West Side with an exciting 28-27 victory at Nusenda Community Stadium.

“Our theme of the week was brotherhood and fighting for each other,” Rio Rancho coach Nate Pino said. “I told them they’d have to fight for 48 minutes. And it was 48 plus some.”

The Rams (5-3, 3-0 in 1-6A) trailed three times in this game. The Hawks (6-2, 2-1) led 7-0, 14-7 and 21-14.

Rio Rancho squared things at 21 on Takahashi’s 27-yard touchdown pass to Matthew Stagman, who was running down the middle of the field with no defender near him. That came with 99 seconds left in the third quarter.

Volcano Vista in the fourth quarter had one possession, following a defensive stand and short punt by the Rams, that began at the Rio Rancho 28. But there was a huge 11-yard sack of the Hawks’ Jude Herrera, a sophomore and the team’s third-string quarterback who was pressed into service for this most crucial of games, which took Volcano Vista out of field-goal range.

Volcano ended up punting; there were no other viable scoring opportunities for either team the remainder of regulation.

The Hawks won the toss in OT and deferred. Takahashi scored on a bit of a broken play, he said.

“Both our guards pulled, so it was a little mishap,” he said. “But I just saw a hole and had to take it.”

Said Pino: “He does that all the time. He’s squirrely. He gets in there, finds a seam, he’s tough as nails.”

Freshman Jude Gonzales scored on first down from the 10 for Volcano Vista to get the score to 28-27. Hawks coach Chad Wallin didn’t hesitate in going for 2 and the win.

“We had so much success in our heavy package, and we just did it from the 10, so why not from the 2?” he said.

But Gonzales ran straight ahead into a pile of Rams, and never came close to the 2 points.

“He just made a bad read,” Wallin said. “He went inside when he should have went outside.”

Gonzales and Herrera were two players forced into duty because Volcano Vista was without its No. 1 QB, Aurelius Wiley, plus their top running back, D’Angelo Mitchell. Veteran linebacker Kaleb Vander Wilt also was injured.

Wallin is hoping the team can get some of them back when Volcano Vista plays host to No. 1 Cleveland next Friday. Wiley got hurt last week against Farmington, Vander Wilt went out Wednesday in practice, and Mitchell lost a tooth in a school accident, Wallin said.

“We were really shorthanded tonight,” he said.

Volcano Vista scored first, on a 39-yard throw and catch by running back Justus Foutz. The Rams, who missed a first-quarter field goal at the end of a 15-play drive, finally did get on the board early in the second quarter. Tailback Ethan Rolon scored on a 46-yard run with 10:28 left before halftime.

Foutz added a 9-yard score midway through the quarter; the Rams, following a Volcano Vista fumble very late in the half, tied it at 14 on Takahashi’s 9-yard TD pass to Parker Miller just 19 seconds before halftime.

Foutz added a third touchdown, from 1 yard out, almost exactly midway through the third quarter.