Volcano Vista hangs on for entertaining opening night victory

Generally speaking, it was a clean opening night at Wilson Stadium.

La Cueva and Volcano Vista combined for a relatively penalty-free, and completely turnover-free, matchup as the 2025 prep football season officially arrived on Thursday night.

That’s not to say there weren’t regrets on each sideline.

By the time the Hawks had secured an entertaining 21-20 victory, this proved to be true:

Volcano Vista was able to overcome its one humongous mistake.

La Cueva was not able to overcome its one glaring error.

“For us, being a young team … we knew we were gonna make some mistakes and have some growing pains,” Volcano Vista coach Chad Wallin said. “But for us, kind of handling the adversity and the chaos at the end of the game, I thought we did a good job.”

La Cueva had the ball in its hand with just over a minute to go, but the Bears were at their own 16 with 65 seconds to go and had no timeouts left. The Hawks’ defense held firm.

“We made more mistakes than them and they capitalized on them,” La Cueva coach Brandon Back said. “I’m happy with what we did, we just have to clean up the mistakes.”

Ah, yes, the mistakes.

First, the one made by La Cueva.

It was 14-7 Volcano Vista late in the first half, and the Bears were inside the Hawks’ 1 and facing a third down.

On that play, the center snap sailed quite a few feet above the head of La Cueva quarterback Monty Melendez, who made a terrific play just to retreat 22 yards and fall on the loose ball. Thus, La Cueva’s touchdown chances were done. But, Chance Whitmire nailed a 41-yard field goal to cut the deficit to 14-10 with 1:21 to go in the quarter. But that snap was a four-point setback for La Cueva.

On the ensuing kickoff, Volcano Vista’s returner caught the ball near the goal line and for some reason carelessly ran out of bounds inside the 1.

And with under 80 seconds left in the half, and with La Cueva having no timeouts, Volcano Vista chose to not run out the clock. Despite the awful field position, the Hawks nevertheless made the decision to try to throw the ball and look for late points. Instead, there were three incompletions — one of them could easily have been called intentional grounding in the end zone — and La Cueva got the ball back at its 38 with plenty of time to score.

And the Bears made Volcano Vista pay the ultimate penalty for that ill-advised sequence.

Melendez threw a 1-yard TD pass to sophomore Cash Brewer with eight seconds left in the half and a 17-14 lead.

“Halftime,” Wallin said, “gave us a chance to calm our young guys down.”

On the Hawks’ opening drive of the third quarter, they went 56 yards on 10 plays, most of them on the ground, with tailback D’Angelo Mitchell ending it with a 3-yard scoring run and a 21-17 lead for Volcano Vista midway through the quarter.

“We put in the work all summer,” Mitchell said. “We came out here to win and we had to handle business and get it done.”

La Cueva in the fourth quarter drove to the Volcano 2, but opted for a short Whitmire field goal, which he easily converted from 20 yards to make it a one-point game with 7:52 remaining.

With just under four minutes left, La Cueva had a fourth-and-4 from its 36. The Bears chose to punt.

“We thought we wanted to put it on our defense to get a stop,” Back said. “We felt we could get a stop and get the time we needed.”

Volcano Vista was able to run almost three minutes off the clock, and eventually punted a short ball to the La Cueva 16, but there was not enough time for the Bears to mount a game-winning drive.

The Hawks amassed a 14-point lead in the first half, starting with a quick, four-play, 80-yard drive to open the game. Starting quarterback Spirit Penn-Cook capped it with a 61-yard keeper an on option.

Less than four minutes into the second quarter, Penn-Cook threw a 1-yard TD pass to Ismael Mendez III.

La Cueva got a much-needed response on its next drive, with James Barreras scoring on a 2-yard run for a 14-7 game.

Penn-Cook later left the game with a shoulder injury, but Wallin did not know how serious it was. The Hawks have a road trip next Thursday at Las Cruces.

“We split with them last year,” Wallin said. That includes a playoff setback at Nusenda Community Stadium. “It left a little sour taste in our mouths.”

HIGHLAND 20, MANZANO 12: George Salzano threw a 27-yard touchdown pass to Jose Tapia with 17 seconds left, as the Hornets edged the Monarchs at Milne Stadium in a season opener.

The game was tied at 12. Highland added a 2-point conversion for the final score.

William Anchondo scored Highland’s first two touchdowns.

”You know, (we have) resilience. Our kids don’t quit,” Highland coach Philip Lovato said. “I think that’s evident, and kind of where we turned our program all these years.”

BERNALILLO 16, VALLEY 14: At Nusenda Community Stadium, the Spartans, down 14-2 at halftime, rallied for a big second-half victory over the Vikings, who committed six turnovers in the loss.

With Valley driving deep into Bernalillo territory, Mario Molinar returned a fumble for a touchdown in the third quarter for the Spartans. Later, pressed into action as one of several back-up quarterbacks, Molinar scored on a touchdown run out of the Wildcat formation midway through the fourth quarter for the go-ahead, and ultimately game-winning, points.

”Our defense really stepped up in the second half,” said Spartans coach John Cobos. Special teams also were crucial as Bernalillo blocked a fourth-quarter field-goal attempt by Valley in a 16-14 game.

”What I was proud of is, my kids never stopped battling, never stopped fighting,” Cobos said. His uncle is Valley head coach Billy Cobos.

Volcano Vista defeats La Cueva: Photos