It's a 3A three-peat for St. Michael's football
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After three months of having their two hands wrapped about the entirety of Class 3A鈥檚 throat, with a championship-level defense showing the way, the St. Michael鈥檚 Horsemen were finally presented with an immense challenge on the season鈥檚 last day.
To that end, the Horsemen hadn鈥檛 allowed anyone to stay close to them in any game until the Dexter Demons faced them on Saturday.
Second-seeded Dexter, playing at home, led virtually the entire way in the 3A final, and was just a couple of minutes from closing out St. Michael鈥檚.
But the top-seeded Horsemen strung together their most clutch drive of the season, and quarterback Kamal Stith scored on a go-ahead 10-yard run with 1:13 to go, and No. 1 St. Michael鈥檚 came back to beat the Demons 28-21 to clinch its third straight blue trophy.
鈥淲e gutted it out,鈥� Horsemen coach Joey Fernandez said. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 say enough about how the kids played.鈥�
With Las Cruces losing in the Class 6A title game, St. Michael鈥檚 (13-0) finished as the only undefeated 11-Man team in the state. The Horsemen鈥檚 winning streak was extended to 33 games.
But it was always in jeopardy on Saturday. Dexter, riding its power run attack to reach the end zone on two early drives for a shocking 14-0 lead 鈥� no 3A team St. Michael鈥檚 has faced this year had scored more than eight on them in an entire game 鈥� put the Horsemen in an unfamiliar position.
St. Mike鈥檚 had the momentum at halftime, having scored on the final play of the half with Roman Barrera catching a touchdown pass to tie the game 14-all.
鈥淲e do have some firepower, once we figured out what we needed to do, we had to make some adjustments defensively to stop that run,鈥� Fernandez said.
But Dexter eventually took the lead again, 21-14. The Horsemen got a touchdown pass to Ryan Hunt with 8 minutes to go, but missed the PAT and faced a 21-20 deficit.
The Demons (10-2), moments later, attempted a fourth down, but were stopped with about four minutes to go, and St. Mike鈥檚 had the ball in its hands with a chance to go ahead following that turnover on downs.
鈥淭he biggest thing was, us staying positive, start playing our type of football,鈥� Fernandez said.
Nobody had played St. Michael鈥檚 closer than 22 points all season prior to Saturday.
