Navajo Prep, Miyamura to host first-round games: Bloomfield earns top seed in 4A

WINDOW ROCK – The New Mexico state playoffs in football is set.

The New Mexico Activities Association released the 12-team brackets for Class 2A to 6A on Sunday with the Bloomfield Bobcats earning the top seed in 4A.

Bloomfield (9-0) has a first-round bye as the Bobcats will sit idle this week awaiting the winner between eighth seed Valencia and No. 9 Moriarty next week.

Grants also made the 4A field as the No. 7 seed as the Pirates will host No. 10 Silver on Saturday at 1 p.m.

The rest of the area playoff teams will be in action either on Friday or Saturday with Navajo Prep and Miyamura earning the No. 8 seeds in their respective brackets. With those seeds, the Eagles and Patriots will be hosting first round games.

Navajo Prep (7-2) will play No. 9 seed McCurdy (7-3) on Saturday at 3 p.m. in the opening round of the 3A playoffs. This is the Eagles second meeting with McCurdy, as Navajo Prep beat its district rival two weeks ago, winning 48-20 on the road.

“I kind of figured that we were going to either play McCurdy or Cuba,” Navajo Prep Roderick Denetso said. “I was even thinking that we would play Hózhó (Academy) if they won, but I’m happy were in the playoffs.”

The Navajo Prep coach is expecting another physical game against McCurdy.

“I know they’re going to be emotional for the first couple of series and I hope that we can withstand that,” Denetso said. “Emotions can get you so far, and you have to go back to the team you are.”

The Navajo Prep coach noted that McCurdy has an excellent quarterback in senior Jeremaya Roybal.

“He’s fast, he’s strong and we have to contain him,” Denetso said. “He knows our guys now, and they’re going to come up with their adjustments, so it’s going to be a chess match.”

To come out on top, the Navajo Prep coach says they have to meet McCurdy’s intensity if they want to advance into the second round against top-seed Texico.

“McCurdy is good, and they’re no pushover,” Denetso said. “They’re physical and big and they have football talent. We have to be us, and just play ourselves and do what we do, which is throw the ball.”

Last week, Navajo Prep defeated Newcomb 44-42 in the regular season finale and earned a share of the District 1-3A crown with McCurdy and Cuba as they all finished with identical 3-1 records in district.

Navajo Prep was awarded the higher seed for the playoffs based on point spread between its game with Cuba and McCurdy.

“It was a three-way tie, but we won outright because of the point spread,” Navajo Prep coach Roderick Denetso said while noting the 28-point win over McCurdy was huge.

Cuba earned the No. 11 seed, and the Rams is playing at No. 6 Loving on Saturday at 2 p.m.

Miyamura

In 5A, Miyamura (6-4) is hosting Highland (6-4) on Friday in the No. 8-9 matchup.

“I was hoping to host a playoff game, and that’s what happened,” Miyamura coach David Foley said. “You know, there is only two districts in 5A in New Mexico and the southern district is pretty loaded so we kind of saw the writing on the wall that it’s going to be tough to get one of the higher seeds.”

The Patriots finished second in the eight-team league that make up District 1-5A with a 5-2 record behind district champ Los Alamos. Earlier this year, Miyamura defeated Highland, 36-31, with juniors Carlos Garcia and Sean Torres rushing for two touchdowns each. The Patriots tallied 163 yards rushing on 35 carries in that Oct. 5 meeting.

Highland senior Amiri Mumba led the Hornets with 260 yards on 24 carries and two TD score.

“Amiri Mumba is the leading rusher in the state, and he averages almost 10 yards per carry,” Foley said. “In our game I felt like we did alright against him but when I looked at the stats he had 260 yards, so he’s a really tough back.

“Obviously, we’re going to have to adjust our defense a little bit,” he added. “They do a really good job of running the outside, and so we’re going to defend that a better than what we did the first time around.”

Foley noted that Highland is “pretty eccentric” in how they line up based on what he’s seen on film in their last two games with Santa Fe Capital and Del Norte.

“I don’t know if they ran the same formation as they did in their two recent games against us the first time,” Foley said. “That’s one of the challenge of playing Highland, they’re pretty eccentric in how they line up, so we have to simplify things for our players for them to follow so that we line up properly.

The winner of Friday’s contest will play at top seed Roswell next week.

Thoreau

In Class 3A, Thoreau (8-2) earned the No. 9 seed as the Hawks were the lone team in District 1-3A to earn a bid to state. Thoreau ran the tables in the district with a 6-0 mark.

Thoreau is set to play at No. 8 Hope Christian on Friday night at 7 p.m. at Milne Stadium in Albuquerque.

“I don’t think that the people in the 3A community, generally, don’t respects the teams from this part of the state,” Thoreau coach Eric Loera said. “I guess in order to gain respect we have to win these games.”

In Loera’s first season as head coach in 2022, his team defeated Hope Christian, 19-13, in the opening round of the playoffs.

“When we played them then they were really vanilla with a first-year coach, so it was pretty easy to stop their offense,” Loera said. “I watched film on them, and they have a more of a passing attack than they did in my first year.

“I watched them play St. Michael’s and St. Michael’s shut down their running game, but they were able to pass,” he added. “They’re going to be tough, and we have to bring our A-game.”

Loera does have some concerns entering the playoffs as some of his key players that are coming off injuries. In its regular season finale, Thoreau turned back Crownpoint 22-14 in a rather close contest.

“What hurt us in the Crownpoint game is my tailback injured his ankle before the Crownpoint game,” Loera said of senior Elam Smith. “He wanted to get into the game and get his seven yards for his 1000th yard season and I put him to allow him to get his 1000 yards, but I didn’t use him much.”

Loera also noted that senior quarterback Stetson Perry is also nursing an ankle injury. For the season, Perry has completed 65-of-106 passes for 1,089 yards and 19 touchdowns.

“He’s not mobile and we’re not able to run our offense like the way we have in the past,” the Thoreau coach said.

In 6A, Piedra Vista was seeded 11th and the Panthers will travel to No. 6 Los Lunas on Friday at 6 p.m.

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