Senior-heavy Miyamura squad looking to start strong

GALLUP – Miyamura football coach David Foley has plenty to work with.

The third-year coach has enlisted over 70 student-athletes for the 2024 gridiron season as half of those players are expected to play on the Patriot varsity squad.

“We keep adding more every day and I think after this week we won’t be able to take on anymore,” Foley said. “We’ve got a good number of JV kids, and a good number of varsity players, so we’re excited about the growth that’s coming up.

“We’re going to be a senior-heavy this year again,” the Miyamura coach added. “We’ll have some juniors and sophomores that’ll be contributing, but we’re going to be leaning heavily on some of our seniors. We’re expecting some big things from them.”

The senior class includes halfback Aiden Macias, running back Jordan Pinto, cornerback Mateo Quintana and linemen Jerome Zepeda, Matthew Krueger and Sebastian Willie. The Patriots will also utilize seniors Seth Torres, Nikki Torres and Javier Flores as that trio will play a big part in Miyamura’s passing game.

“We have a lot of kids coming back and we got some linemen that we’re excited about,” Foley said while noting that he plans on running the same offensive schemes from years past.

“We’re putting in the same concepts we’ve had year after year,” Foley said. “We base our offense on what we can execute effectively and the last couple of years we’ve had a really good offensive line. We’ll have a good offensive line this year as well and, you know, we’ll go as far as our offensive line takes us.”

The O-line will be anchored by Krueger, who was named one of the team captains this week.

“He was our best lineman last year, (but) he broke his leg in the first quarter in our first game with Aztec, so he was out for the whole year,” Foley said. “He’s also going to be playing some outside linebacker for us, so we’re very excited to have him back.”

Foley was also thrilled about the prospects of sophomore linemen Joseph Dallas and Wyatt Silversmith as well as junior center Josh Hughbanks.

“He’s been really solid for us,” Foley said of Hughbanks. “Josh is a transfer and so he didn’t get to play varsity last year. He’s a junior and this is his first go at varsity football.”

In addition to Hughbanks, the Patriots will also have Salid Rashid eligible this season. The two juniors transferred to Miyamura from nearby Hózhó Academy as sophomores.

Rashid is projected to start at quarterback, replacing Dylan Joines who graduated this past spring.

“Dylan Joines was a great athlete,” the Miyamura coach said. “He did a great job for us at quarterback. He was more of a running quarterback, but that wasn’t his natural position.”

Foley says Rashid is more of a natural thrower.

“We’ve been preparing him to be our quarterback,” he said. “Ben Vidales has been getting quarterback reps as well. He did pretty good in practice these last couple weeks and so we’re hoping we can be a little bit more effective with our throwing.”

Defensively, the Patriots will lean on junior linebacker Carlos Garcia, cornerback Mateo Quintana and Vidales at safety.

“Carlos Garcia was an all-district player for us last year,” Foley said. “Mateo started corner for us last year, and he’s got a lot of experience. He was a really good defensive player for us last year, so we’re excited to have him back.”

Foley, who will be calling the defensive plays, feels that his team will be better equipped to run its schemes on that side of the ball as opposed to last season.

“We changed our defense last year,” he said. “We’re going to roll with the same defensive concept, so I think our kids will be more comfortable with that.”

The Patriots will run a three high safety defense, which fits its personnel.

“We don’t get a lot of linebacker-sized kids,” Foley said, “so I think this is a better fit for us because we tend to have a lot more talent from the secondary.”

In this new realignment year, Miyamura stayed in Class 5A as most of the area schools are either at the 4A or 3A level.

“We’re still in 5A and, honestly, I’m 100% fine with that,” Foley said. “We’ve seen some 4A schools like Bloomfield, and they’re a fantastic football team. I think when you get to the top level of 4A football, it’s not much different than playing in 5A.

“We’re going to have strong competition either way,” he added. “But we’re fine staying at 5A. I think as long as I’ve coached here in New Mexico, Miyamura has always been 5A for football.”

The Patriots were placed in District 1-5A by the New Mexico Activities Association as the eight-team league includes Belen, Santa Fe Capital, Los Alamos and Albuquerque schools Del Norte, Highland, Rio Grande and Valley.

“We certainly want to be competitive in our district,” Foley said. “That’s always been my focus, you know, trying to win a district championship.”

The other district features teams from southern New Mexico. It has Artesia, Deming, Gadsden, Goddard, Lovington, Mayfield, Roswell and Santa Teresa playing in the eight-team District 2-5A.

“We know the southeast district is really tough,” Foley said. “If we’re fortunate enough to make the playoffs, we’ll probably be facing some of those teams.”

Miyamura opens the season at Grants next week on Friday before hosting Aztec on Aug. 30. The Foley-coached team will finish out the nondistrict slate at Bloomfield on Sept. 6.

Foley is hoping to go above .500 entering the district season as the Patriots got off to a 1-3 start the previous two years.

“I want to see a better start,” the Miyamura coach said. “With the continuity that we have with the players and coaching staff I think we can make that happen. We’re looking for a good start and then we can start talking about making a push in our district.”

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