Gadsden beats Los Alamos to advance in Class 5A football playoffs

In its first postseason appearance since 1972, the Gadsden football team made easy work of Los Alamos on Saturday.

The No. 10 Panthers beat No. 7 Los Alamos 44-21 on the road to advance to the Class 5A quarterfinals.

Saturday was Gadsden's first playoff victory since 1966 when they beat Tucumcari 7-2 to reach the 3A championship, where they lost to the same team they beat Saturday, Los Alamos.

2022 NMAA New Mexico High School Football playoffs scores, schedule

Gadsden will play at No. 2 Roswell on Saturday at 1 p.m.

"(Roswell) is a well coached football team and they are hungry," said Gadsden coach Dino Facio, whose team is 5-6. "We are going to have to play our best football if we want to advance. The beauty is they haven't seen us and we haven't seen them. That is a really good program that knows how to win games."

The Panthers took control of the game early on Saturday.

Gadsden led 14-0, 21-7 and 28-7 at halftime.

"That was so big for us because we talked all week about being physical and beating them to the punch early on," Facio said. "To go up 14-0 and make it 21-7 for us was huge. It felt like we had it from there on."

Gadsden quarterback Tomas Herrera had one passing touchdown and three rushing touchdowns and running back Steven Morales had one rushing touchdown and one receiving touchdown.

"(Up 28-7 at halftime) We went back to the (Organ Mountain) game and have to learn how to close these games out," Facio said. "We came out and executed. The biggest thing was to finish the game and not let up."

Hatch Valley falls in first round playoff game

The No. 11 seeded Hatch Valley football team lost 63-14 at No. 6 Raton in the first round of the Class 3A playoffs on Saturday.

The Bears finished the season 6-4-1