Moriarty Knocks Portales From Playoffs 49-13

After a week of intense focus and preparation, Moriarty’s crushing ground game pounded out a 49-13 win over Portales in the opening round of the Nusenda Class 4A State Football Tournament on Friday.

“It was just a crisp week of practice. We had a lot of kids who were sick. We’ve got some sickness going around on the team. We never had kids complaining about it. We never had kids who said, Hey, I can’t be at practice,” Coach Gabriel Romero said. “They showed up. Our execution this week was excellent on both the offense, defense, and special teams. It was just one of those great weeks of practice. It showed tonight.”

The execution showed up early as the Pintos took their opening drive to the house with Mario Romero kicking things off with a massive run into the red zone that set up his first touchdown of the night.
“I think it was huge with those first couple of series, getting some big runs. It gave our kids a lot of confidence, and it was somewhat demoralizing for the defense to have that happen to them. We just played our game,” Romero said.
Romero’s second score drove his coach’s point home as he rambled more than 60 yards, and Royce Dennison’s follow-up PAT run made it a 14-0 game.

Quarterback Devin Ortiz took over from there with a three-touchdown stretch, including a dazzling 12-yard scramble that ended with him scoring as he flipped into the end zone for a 35-7 Pinto lead.
Moriarty was far from done with Mateo Manley-Griego ripping off his longest touchdown of the season when he came around the left side on a 58-yard scoring jaunt.

Abraham Sloan provided the final tally with a pick-six interception when he stepped in front of a sideline pass and outsprinted everyone to the end zone.

Turning Attention to Portales
Moriarty’s win puts the Pintos into the state semifinals, and it’s going to be an interesting path the rest of the way, with the next step being a 4.5-hour trip to Chaparral to face the 7-3 Lobos.

Coach Romero’s most significant task this week is keeping his team focused on strictly Chaparral and not letting the Pintos get overconfident. Despite a higher ranking in the final football polls, which earned the Lobos a bye in the opening round, Chaparral barely beat Portales 33-28 in its final regular-season game.

“They just played Portales, so we got to see a little bit of a video on them. They’ve got some size, and they throw the ball a lot. Their quarterback is a pretty operator,” Romero said. “Defenses play us a lot differently than they play everybody else. That’s going to be the big thing, trying to figure out and prepare our kids for any defense that they may show up in.”

Defenses play Moriarty differently because they are trying to stop a 264.2-yard per game rushing attack that comes out of the Pintos’ hybrid single/Wing T offense.

“We have run this offense for a long time here. When I played in high school, we ran it. Coach Bob Alcorn, who was just inducted into the Moriarty Hall of Fame last weekend. He brought it here again. It’s stuck. So, we’ve been doing it for a while,” Romero said.

The kickoff for Friday’s game in Chaparral is set for 7:00 p.m.