Contractors work in the spring on new turf at Santa Fe Highās Ivan Head Stadium. The home of the Demons football team will once again be the setting of the Class 3A state football championship between St. Michaelās and Dexter on Saturday. It will be the third straight time the Horsemen have played for the state title at Ivan Head, and the eighth time they have played a playoff game there. The Demons have played playoff games at home only three times.
Contractors work in the spring on new turf at Santa Fe Highās Ivan Head Stadium. The home of the Demons football team will once again be the setting of the Class 3A state football championship between St. Michaelās and Dexter on Saturday. It will be the third straight time the Horsemen have played for the state title at Ivan Head, and the eighth time they have played a playoff game there. The Demons have played playoff games at home only three times.
Welcome to Santa Fe Highās Ivan Head Stadium, the home of the Horsemen.
In what is becoming a time-honored tradition, Ivan Head Stadium will host a state football championship game.
St. Michaelās will play the Class 3A title game at Santa Fe Highās stadium to accommodate the number of fans expected for the game against Dexter. This is the third straight year that has happened and the eighth time since the stadium was built in 1980. Seven of those (2003, ā07, ā11, ā12, ā22, ā23, ā24) involved the Horsemen, while New Mexico School for the Deaf hosted the 6-man championship game in 2007 at Ivan Head.
In fact, Ivan Head has been the home to more St. Michaelās state playoff games than the Demons, who have played on their home field in the postseason three times ā and never since 1985.
The other Demons
If youāre looking for an early scouting report of the Dexter Demons, just think of a scaled-down version of the EspaƱola Valley Sundevils. Yes, the power wishbone is the Demonsā preferred means of operating, and they are very effective at it.
The Demons also spread the ball around as effectively as the 4A Sundevils, as four players have gained at least 400 yards and two have more than 700 yards on the season. The only difference is that Dexter has a capable thrower in quarterback CJ Granados, who has thrown for 1,495 yards and 18 touchdowns.
That was key late in the Demonsā 27-24 win over Las Vegas Robertson, as he connected on all three passes for 25 yards to set himself up for the game-winning 32-yard field goal as time expired.
Take it from the expert
Itās safe to say no one knows more about St. Michaelās football than Horsemen historian Mike Pitel. The longtime self-appointed sports information director for the last two decades (give or take), the lifelong Yankees fan offers a weekly glance at St. Mikeās and the opponent they happen to be facing.
For this game, he pared down his remarkably thorough 79-page statistical history of Horsemen football into a 14-page breakdown showing where this yearās team compares to the all-time greats in school history.
To call his work impressive is a disservice to the detail he puts into it. In building his database, he spent countless hours digging through archives, researching old texts and spending time at the (gulp) real-life library looking at old newspaper clippings.
Among the gems he unearthed: Soren Annonās 12.5 sacks are tied for the single-season school record, a mark he shares with teammate Ryan Hunt (last season) and Isaiah Dominguez ā who accomplished his feat in just eight games back in 2013. Huntās 23.5 career sacks are half a sack short of Tim Mathewās program standard set from 2005-07. And, oh yeah, Hunt is only a sophomore.
Defensive back Sabiani Rios-Guevaraās five passes defended in last weekās win at New Mexico Military tied the single-game school record.
Staying unbeaten
St. Michaelās is seeking its third undefeated season. Interestingly, only one of the previous two resulted in a state title.
The 2012 team went 13-0, winning the 3A championship by beating Silver, 10-7, at Ivan Head Stadium. The 1937 team was the first to be perfect, going 9-0 to claim a share of a mythical state title.
The New Mexico Activities Association considers the start of the āmodern eraā of football to be 1950 when it began recognizing state champions with sanctioned postseason events.
The first Horsemen team to ever win at least 10 games in a single season was the 1933 team that went 10-1. The Horsemen would go another 52 years before reaching double digits for a second time; the 1985 team went 10-2 under coach Jerry Koller before losing to Grants in a 14-7 first-round playoff game at home.
Gaudy numbers
This yearās Horsemen will need to score at least 53 points in Saturdayās game to go down the most prolific scoring team in school history. Through 12 games theyāre averaging 43.9 points (527 total). The all-time record is 44.6 (535 in 12 games) for the 2010 team.
This yearās team has hit the 53-point plateau three times in wins over Hope Christian (60), Pojoaque Valley (55) and Thoreau (55). The high-water mark given up by Dexter this season is 29 in an October win over Socorro.
To set the single-season points record will take quite a bit more effort. The 2003 state championship team scored 593 points in 14 games, meaning the Horsemen would need to hang at least 67 on Dexter to own that mark.
An awful lot of winning
The Horsemen have won 19 games in a row, but itās not quite a school record. Itās not even the second-longest.
St. Mikeās won 24 consecutive games from 1936-38. It was, at the time, the longest streak in state history and was a standard that stood until 1957 when Gadsden passed it en route to a then-record 34-game run ending in 1958.
The all-time record is Animas and its untouchable 69-game run between 1985 and 1990.
That 24-game Horsemen streak surpassed the 23 in a row won by Clovis between 1932-34 and the previous state standard of 23 straight by the Horsemen from 1912-13.
Thatās right; the Horsemenās previous record run started just a few months after New Mexico became a state, just a few months after the Titanic went down, just a few months after Fenway Park hosted its first game.
Part Five
While this will be the first time St. Michaelās and Dexter face off in the state playoffs, they did have a short-lived, four-year series from 1978-1981. Dexter was a Class 2A school at the time, a distinction it held until moving up to 3A in 2017. The Horsemen won three of the four matchups.
