PREP FOOTBALL NOTES: Quick TDs helped Cats romp

IT WAS FEAST OR famine second quarter for the Clovis Wildcats in Friday’s 51-12 rout of Sandia at Leon Williams Stadium.

The Wildcats needed four plays to score twice at the start of the second quarter.

After Clovis stopped Sandia on a 4th-and-2 at its own 40, quarterback Devin Sweet hooked up with Rishard Matthews for 36-yard gain. Tanner Fickling scored from 4 yards out on the next play.

The Wildcats then got the ball back after a punt. Sweet found Matthews for 9 yards, followed by Brian Mead’s 58-yard touchdown run.

Clovis’ next three possessions ended in a pair of Sweet interceptions and a punt — the only one of the game for the Wildcats.

“Other than late in the second quarter, our offense did a great job,” Clovis assistant Darren Kelley said.

Sweet has thrown seven interceptions on the year.

“If you throw the ball, you’re going to have some interceptions,” Kelley said. “We’ve got to do a better job of reading some coverages, letting the play develop, not getting in a hurry.

“On a couple of the interceptions we had people wide open, but that’s part of throwing the football, that stuff is going to happen. But defensively, we have to go out there and stop them (after a turnover).”

MEAD CREDITED THE COACHING staff with getting the Wildcats refocused at halftime.

“We didn’t play smart in the first half,” he said, “but we came out after halftime and played a lot smarter. We adjusted to what they were doing. We went over our blocking assignments on the chalkboard before we came back out, just learning the plays over again.”

Clovis scored on four of its first five possessions of the second half en route to its highest offensive output of the season.

AFTER RECORDING ONLY TWO sacks in their first five games, the Clovis defense has eight in the past two weeks — five against Roswell Goddard and three more against Sandia.

Chase Denton, Jonathan Sweet and Michael Lewis sacked Sandia quarterback Matthias Petzoid on Friday for 23 yards in losses.

Sandia coach Kevin Barker said he expected the Matadors to be a little intimidated because they had never played in a place such as Leon Williams Stadium. After the game, he said that’s the way it went.

“I think we started pretty wide-eyed,” Barker said. “Our kids were wide-eyed and a little nervous. It was pretty quiet in our locker room before the game.”

By the numbers:

* Senior cornerback Matt Ulibarri blocked his fifth kick of the season after Sandia’s second touchdown.

* Junior wide receiver Rishard Matthews caught his sixth touchdown pass of the season on Friday, which ties the school’s single-season mark set by Clint Coffman.

* Sophomore Robert North kicked his second field goal of the season, a 28-yarder in the first quarter that gave Clovis a 10-0 lead.

* Mead is 71 yards away from reaching 1,000 on the season.

* Clovis finished with a season-high 448 yards, including 335 on the ground.