Rough turf? That’s Robertson’s field of dreams for title matchup
Las Vegas’ turf is home for senior Ortiz, who is trying to win his first title in 3 trips
LAS VEGAS, N.M. — The greatest home field advantage in the state has more to do with sprinklers and global warming than it does honking horns, rabid fans and Northern New Mexico ambience.
Cardinals Stadium, the site of Saturday’s Class 4A state championship football game between host Robertson and visiting Ruidoso, has all of the above. That includes the field entrance where players must walk through an opening in the home bleachers to reach the playing surface. For visitors, it can get a little claustrophobic as fans line both sides, most of them standing well above eye level to greet anyone walking through.
“I think that is one of the things I like most about our place,” said Cardinals football coach Leroy Gonzalez. “I like seeing other teams having to walk through there.”
What sets the place apart, however, is the very turf the Robertson football team calls home. The natural grass field turned from lush green to mostly crusty yellow a long time ago, an unmistakable sign of summer passing into late fall. By Week 1, it was already a mess with summer rains and two-a-days grinding the grass into some sort of thick, vegan
pudding.
The first freeze of October turned the green into yellow and the arid fall season converted the ground into a painful combination of hardened soil topped with itchy hay-like vegetation. Just walk from one sideline to the other and it’s not that hard to find a place where even the most stable of ankles gets threatened with a sprain, thanks to the uneven
footing.
“If we don’t water it, it turns that ground into cement,” Gonzalez said. “If we water it, it gets muddy pretty fast. We’ve been watering it all week.”
It sounds like Gonzalez is lamenting the state of his own facility. He’s not.
The Cardinals are just as in love with their home field as much as visiting teams despise it. No one likes visiting this Las Vegas landmark, let alone anyone with an entire season riding on the line in the playoffs.
“There’s no place I’d rather play a game,” said Cardinals quarterback Arjay Ortiz. “Nowhere.”
A three-year starter who has led his team to the state finals all three times, Ortiz wraps up his stellar prep career — he is 33-4 since the start of the 2015 season — with one last game Saturday. Ending it with that elusive crown would be the ideal way to walk off that field for the last time.
“We’ve gotten to this point three years in a row and, I’m telling you, leaving with a loss is hard,” Ortiz said.
The Cardinals reached the finals by eliminating defending champion Portales last week in a game where Gonzalez scrapped the full-time shotgun formation in favor of Ortiz spending most of his time taking the snap directly under center. It was a genius move because it kept Ortiz safe from several high-impact hits and, as Gonzalez said, it let the game come to him instead of the other way around.
“I think he knows that he needs to try to will his team to win, and we’re trying to help him with that,” Gonzalez said. “If we can all the game to develop and let Arjay see it when we’re doing things this way, it helps him later in the game to make those plays he usually does for us. He’s our general. We need him to do that for us.”
Ruidoso is no stranger to Robertson. The teams have had a home-and-home series in the regular season every year Gonzalez has been the Cardinals’ coach, including a game this fall that Robertson won by two touchdowns.
The Warriors (9-3) are led by quarterback Brennam Stewart, a senior who completed 62 percent of his passes for nearly 1,800 yards and 15 touchdowns. A run-pass threat, he and running back Isaiah Otero have combined for over 2,700 yards rushing with 30 touchdowns.
Basically, it one of them doesn’t have the ball, the other usually does.
“[Stewart] makes great zone reads and does a really good job with the [run-pass options],” Gonzalez said. “He does a lot of Arjay-ish things when he rolls out of the pocket, too.”
Robertson’s defense probably wasn’t prepared to face Ruidoso’s 1-2 punch five weeks ago when its top defensive player, senior linebacker Juan Marcos Dominguez, was lost for the season. He tore an ACL late in the first half of the team’s only loss to St. Michael’s on Oct. 21.
His exit caused a ripple effect that didn’t really settle until the playoffs began two weeks ago.
Mackenzie Ebell was moved from his spot at outside linebacker to fill Dominguez’s vacancy on the inside. That forced Brandon Lucero to moved from safety to take Ebell’s old spot, then Emiliano Berged to take Lucero’s spot at safety.
The final move had Ishmael Martinez slide from corner to a linebacker’s spot to add more speed against the run.
Dominguez has been the team’s biggest asset ever since, serving as a tutor and motivator to players like Ebell.
“It surprises me to see how much [Dominguez] has done,” Gonzalez said. “Really, it took us a good four weeks to figure out what to do without him. It’s one reason why I’ve been saying all along that I didn’t want to face Ruidoso early in the playoffs because we still weren’t ready.”
The Cardinals appear to be ready now as the mixture of younger underclassmen has meshed with the senior leadership that has known nothing but winning — and near misses — for so long.
As a creature of habit, Gonzalez continued to work until about 9 p.m. every night, then head back to the field first thing in the morning to walk around the track and gather his thoughts. On game day, he and his assistants gather at the same place every Saturday and order the same thing, going over the game plan one last time.
With all the Xs and Os in place, the only thing they can’t seem to control is the field they play on. Complete with enough divots and rutted trenches, its hardened bald spots and areas of oddly cushioned grass, it’s an ugly thing of beauty to anyone in a red uniform.
“It sure would be nice to leave with a championship,” Gonzalez said. “I’ve been lucky enough to do it before and I’m telling you, there’s no better feeling.”