Volcano Vista wins 1-6A opener; Valley, Centennial also earn victories

Volcano Vista won by four touchdowns Thursday night, but coach Chad Wallin’s voice did not convey a tone of content.

“I didn’t think we played a very good game,” Wallin said. “I didn’t think we were sharp. Coming off a bye week, I can anticipate a series or two of getting back into a rhythm of things, but it felt discombobulated on our sideline, in our communications, in our execution. So I’m not real thrilled.”

The fourth-ranked Hawks beat No. 10 Piedra Vista 35-7 at Nusenda Community Stadium to open the District 1-6A half of their schedule, but Wallin let his team know he was less than pleased.

“We felt we didn’t play as well as we should,” junior quarterback Aurelius Wiley said. “We should have played a lot better than we did out there.”

D’Angelo Mitchell ran for three touchdowns for Volcano Vista, and Ismael Mendez III caught a pair of touchdown passes from Wiley. The Hawks scored the final 35 points of the game.

Piedra Vista (3-3) sort of had to ham-and-egg its way through this game. While its defense kept the Panthers in it almost all the way into the fourth quarter, Piedra Vista was hamstrung offensively, as it was down to a third-string quarterback. This, following injuries to the previous two starters, including one just last week against Canyon, Texas.

That QB, junior Amasi Griego, engineered a short scoring drive to open the game, 32 yards on seven plays following a short Volcano punt, and he capped it with a 1-yard score. He rushed for all 32 yards on that drive in the game’s first four minutes.

It was a blocked punt a few minutes later that snapped Volcano Vista back into it. The ball was recovered at the Piedra Vista 7, and Mitchell scored on the next play.

“That was huge,” Wallin said. “We needed something,”

On a fourth down and 4 several minutes into the second quarter, Mitchell took a pitch to the left and scored on well-blocked 14-yard run for a 14-7 lead. Wiley threw a 9-yard TD pass to Mendez in the back corner with 102 seconds to go before halftime.

Mitchell added the clincher, a 1-yard run late in the third quarter. And a scrambling Wiley hit Mendez on a terrific 34-yard touchdown pass with 5:10 remaining in the game.

VALLEY 7, CAPITAL 3: At Milne Stadium, Zach Perez, taking the ball out of the Wildcat formation, scored on a 2-yard run midway through the fourth quarter, and the Vikings (2-5, 2-2 in 1-5A), who have been involved in a handful of close games all season, pulled out a win over the Jaguars (2-5, 2-2).

Valley has had four games already this year decided by four or fewer points. The Vikings are 2-2 in those games. Thursday night’s game was scoreless at halftime; Capital took a 3-0 lead midway through the third quarter.

CENTENNIAL 42, ALAMOGORDO 32: At the Field of Dreams in Las Cruces, Dailen Ramirez rushed for four touchdowns to lead the third-ranked Hawks (5-1, 2-0 in 3-6A) over the Tigers (4-3, 1-2).