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Thursday, June 05, 2008

Mountainair Folks Support All-Stars

By Harold Smith
Mountain View Telegraph
      RUIDOSO — Can it get any better than this?
    “No, it can't,” Mountainair High and all-stars football coach Robert Zamora said with conviction. “It is a perfect season.”
    Zamora's West team, with five of his just-graduated Mustangs on the postseason 20-man roster, defeated the East 38-16 at the 2008 Eight-Man Football East-West All-Star Game at W.D. Horton Stadium in Ruidoso on Saturday.
    The victory was the icing on the cake for Mountainair's boys, undefeated at 12-0 in 2007. The 'Stangs won the state title back on Nov. 24.
    Mountainair's Victor Romero, who scored on a 43-yard run, shared most valuable player honors with the East's Jesse Leonard. Leonard, of Roswell's Valley Christian Academy, took it into the end zone for both of his team's touchdowns.
    “It's been a great year,” said Romero, a 5-foot 9-inch, 170-pound running back who carried the ball seven times for a game-best 71 yards.
    The West, much like the Mustangs did in the state championship game this past fall, came from behind for the win. Leonard scored on a 17-yard run with 5:37 left in the first quarter and on a 44-yard scamper at the 3:05 mark of the second quarter to give the East a 16-0 lead.
    “At the beginning, we were just getting warmed up,” said Mountainair's Joseph Lopez, a 5-7, 205-pound defensive tackle for the West. “But then, after we warmed up, we started running harder and hitting harder. And they got tired, got mad and lost heart. We took their heart from them.”
    Lopez, who also was his school's homecoming king, decisively sacked Leonard for an 11-yard loss during the final play of the third quarter.
    Zamora helped his team get on track with some adjustments.
    “After they scored on us twice, I did make some changes, moved some people around,” said the coach, who expects to return for a fifth season at the Mustangs' helm. “And we put more pressure up front.”
    The West started out with a 3-3 defense, then converted to a 4-2 against the East's tight-I offensive formation. Zamora's squad primarily used a pro-set on offense.
    The West stormed back to tie the score at 16 in the last two minutes of the first half.
    Mountainair quarterback Mathew Chavez, the 2007 defensive player of the year, lofted a 44-yard pass to Springer's Robert Arellano for the West's initial score with 1:52 remaining in the second quarter. Chavez connected with Arellano again for a successful conversion pass to close to 16-8.
    Then, with 13.2 seconds left in the first half, the 5-10, 230-pound Chavez, who earned the gold medal in the Class 1A boys javelin throw at the state track and field meet last month, bulled his way into the end zone from 3 yards out to capitalize on a fumble recovery by Animas' Alex Romo at the East 20-yard line. Mustang Vincent Zamora, the state 300-meter hurdles champion and Mountainair's student body president, on a reverse, added two more points with a conversion run.
    Animas, the state runner-up, teamed with Mountainair to provide a 1-2 punch for the West.
    They (the Panthers) are all cool,” said Zamora, a 5-9, 150-pound receiver and cornerback. “It was amazing. They all had good attitudes.”
    The two teams, adversaries in what ultimately was a 38-26 state finals loss for Animas on its home field, bonded in the five days the West players trained and roomed together in Ruidoso prior to Saturday.
    “I didn't think it would be this much fun,” said Romo, who intercepted a pass from Valley Christian's Jeremy Harding and returned the ball 55 yards for the final touchdown of the game with 3:10 left. “They (the Mustangs) were the ones we hung around with the most.”
    Animas coach Louie Laborin and Menaul's Jeff Strohecker were Robert Zamora's assistants.
    “This was a little easier than playing against Mountainair,” Laborin said with a smile. “The boys did come together. You don't always see that. I think that's what won the game for us.”
    The blue-clad West, though it had five fumbles and lost one itself, was helped by five East turnovers. The East, which wore red jerseys, fumbled the ball four times and lost three of them, and Leonard and Harding both were intercepted. The East was short-handed with only 12 players suited up.
    Romero — the 2007 offensive player of the year shook tackles or dragged defenders along with regularity — scored his rushing touchdown with 5:23 left in the third quarter.
    Animas' Skyler Richins, who shared the West's passing chores with Chavez, hit Maxwell's Chris Galli with a conversion pass, but the play was nullified by offsetting penalties. Romo's subsequent run failed, and the West led 22-16 going into the final quarter.
    Richins' 18-yard pass to a wide-open Arellano garnered six more points for the West with 7:26 left in the game as the East keyed on Chavez on fourth down with only a yard needed for a first. Panther K.C. Del Peterson ran it in for the conversion and a 30-16 West lead.
    The West outgained the East 209-177 in total yards, according to the Telegraph's scorebook.
    The winners carried the ball 27 times for 136 yards, while the East ran it 28 times for 145 yards. Chavez and Richins, combined, were 3-for-11 with no interceptions for 73 passing yards, and the East was 1-for-12 with two picks for 32 yards.
    Adam Hairgrove of Melrose was the East's rushing leader. He toted the ball nine times for 67 yards.
    The event was a Mountainair show all the way around.
    Tammy Zamora, Vincent's mother and the Lady Mustangs' track and field coach, was the scorekeeper, and Glenn Fulfer was the announcer. Larry Zamora, Vincent's father; Kevin Reese, Mountainair's boys track coach and one of the 'Stangs' football assistants; and Rusty Kayser were the chain gang.
    Victor Zamora, Vincent's brother, was the West's water boy.
    “It was cool,” said the 4-10 seventh-grader-to-be, “I want to play football in high school, probably. And I'm going to run track.”
    Vincent Zamora, Romero and Chavez plan to attend the University of New Mexico next school year. Zamora said he might try to walk on the Lobos' track team, while Chavez and Romero will try to do the same with UNM's football program.
    Lopez said he will attend UNM's Valencia campus this fall. Mustang Patrick McCrory, the West's 5-11, 145-pound center, said he will be moving to Oklahoma to work in the oil fields.
    “This (Mountainair) team meant a lot to me,” McCrory said. “It was like my family. I learned a lot.”
   

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