Friday goal: Tame Tigers

CLOVIS — There’s no way to sugar-coat the weather at Clovis’ Monday-afternoon football practice. It was stinking hot, hovering near triple digits throughout.

The Wildcats took precautions, though, with coaches parked under hats that should’ve had their own zip codes, and players getting regular water breaks.

Ghastly as the heat was, the ’Cats were out there hoping to stay hot — figuratively, that is — as they try to follow up last Friday’s 42-16 season-opening victory over Hobbs with another home win, this time against Los Lunas.

And though this Friday night’s heat promises to be not quite as punishing as Monday afternoon’s, beating Los Lunas won’t be easy. A state 5A finalist last year, the Tigers are already off to a blazing start, having gone on the road to Farmington and routed Piedra Vista 28-0 in their season opener last Friday.

But Clovis, too, comes in rolling after last weekend’s lightning-abbreviated rout of rival Hobbs, and will now try for a fifth-straight 2-0 start. The Wildcats were on a good path after a strong practice Monday.

“Our kids are still pretty fired up,” said Clovis head coach Cal Fullerton, who fittingly wore the biggest hat of all the coaches Monday. “I talked to (the players) before practice about Los Lunas a little bit, the things they do on defense. ... They’ve got some huge kids, man, a lot of returning starters.”

Among the key Los Lunas players who were at Roswell’s Wool Bowl for last December’s 5A title game and will be at Leon Williams Stadium this Friday, is quarterback Kade Benavidez, now a senior. The 6-1, 215-pound Benavidez is a good all-around athlete — a righthanded pitcher and switch-hitting infielder during baseball season — who should be challenging for the Wildcats’ defense to stop.

“Good quarterback,” Fullerton said. “The guy can sling it around a lot; they’re going to throw it, run some simple zone stuff at us. They spread you out and try to get it to their athletes, and they do a really good job of it.”

“They’ve got some quick receivers, pretty good receivers,” Clovis cornerback Brandon Mason — who came up with an interception and a fumble recovery against Hobbs — said of Los Lunas.

Aside from any specific strengths, the Tigers are flat out dangerous overall.

“Their kids are hungry,” Fullerton said. “They’ve got a great program, great coaching staff. ... Their head coach (Jeremy Maupin) is from Artesia, so they run a lot of the same stuff offensively that Artesia does. They’ve got a new defensive coordinator this year. A lot of size up front, on both sides of the ball. Really good skill kids; we saw them a little bit this summer when we were at 7-on-7 camp at New Mexico State.”

Los Lunas is indeed a tough Week 2 matchup, but that works both ways. The Tigers will have to contend with a Clovis offense that rolled up 42 points in less than a full 48 minutes last week. Junior quarterback Chance Harris, a second-year starter under center, passed for 154 yards and two touchdowns against Hobbs.

And then there’s the five-touchdown man, junior running back Jeston Webskowski, who rushed for four scores, was on the receiving end of another, and rushed for a two-point conversion against the Eagles. In all, Webskowski dashed for 171 yards on 21 carries Friday night.

Understandably, he was still pretty keyed up on Monday, just three days after his smashing debut as the Wildcats’ main rusher, but he was able to focus on Los Lunas as the practice week began.

“I think we had a pretty good day of practice,” Webskowski said after Monday’s on-field work was done. “All of that energy that we had in the game, we stretched it over, and it resulted in a really good practice today.”

“We responded really well,” Mason said of the practice. “We had a good win. The energy we brought from that game picked us up.”

The Wildcats are relishing the chance to win another one, beat an elite opponent, start 2-0 again.

“I’m very excited. I know the team is,” Webskowski said. “Coach Cal is telling us about how important this game is, and we’re just getting locked in now.”

“We’ve got to have good practices,” Mason said, “everybody locked in every day.”