Heavily favored Albuquerque La Cueva was stunned by Las Cruces-Mayfield 21-17 at the Field of Dreams in Las Cruces Friday evening in the New Mexico 5-A state championship semi-finals. With its third playoff win of the year, the sixth-seed Trojans advance to the state championship game next weekend. Mayfield will face the winner of the Las Cruces High vs. Manzano game, which will be played at Wilson Stadium in Albuquerque Saturday afternoon with the kickoff set for 2:00pm. La Cueva came into the Mayfield game with the state's all-time leading rusher, Ronnie Daniels. The nineteen year-old Daniels carried the ball more than 50 times on the evening for more than 350 yards.
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| Ronnie Daniels |
But it was the scrappy Mayfield defense that made the biggest plays of the game. Trojan defenders stripped Daniels, who is headed for Texas Tech, twice. Unfortunately for La Cueva, Daniels' fumbles came at critical stages of the contest. Mayfield's offense got huge second half performances out of their running game. Both Ricky Milks and Brandon Betancourt reeled off long runs for Mayfield and both ran for over 100 yards. Near the end of the fourth quarter La Cueva had a final chance to regain the lead. However, on a fourth and two play inside Mayfield territory at the forty yard line, Daniels did not get the ball for one of the few times in the game. Instead, La Cueva's fourth down pass was batted down by the Trojan defense. As the ball hit the ground, the end came to La Cueva's dreams of back-to-back state championships. And as Mayfield took a knee to run the final seconds off the clock, the Trojans did what they rarely do, they won as an underdog at the Field of Dreams in Las Cruces. Usually it is Mayfield that carries the favorite role into late November games in the State of New Mexico. During the post-game celebration, legendary coach Jim Bradley wished the Las Cruces Bulldawgs success in their semi-final contest against an Albuquerque foe. Clearly a jubilant Bradley was hopeful that the Trojans will get a rematch against their cross-town rivals at Aggie Memorial Stadium next Saturday afternoon. Standing in the way of another all Las Cruces final, and a big payday for the NMAA thanks to a dream matchup that could draw 30,000 football fans, is an outstanding Albuquerque Manzano team that has been virtually unstoppable all year.
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