Curry Cats improve to 3-0

Manuel Robles scored a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns, and the Curry County Cats escaped a halftime deficit to defeat the New Mexico Black Hawks 13-6 Sunday in Los Lunas.

With the win, the Cats (3-0) are now the only perfect team in the New Mexico Premier League. The Black Hawks dropped to 1-1.

Robles, a running back on Clovis’ 2007 Class 5A state runnerup team, scored on a 15-yard run early in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 6-6, and took a screen pass 47 yards for the winning score with 20 seconds to play.

Cats coach Paul Lopez thought the team survived, but could have played better in its first road contest.

“The timing was off, the O-line wasn’t really blocking,” Lopez said. “We ran the ball better this week. We worked in some of our two-back stuff.”

The Cats are on the road again this week, as they face the Alamogordo Desert Dawgs at 2 p.m. Saturday. The game was moved from Sunday.