Avery See?
More like Avery Do.
The senior running back for the Albuquerque Del Norte Knights lived up to the hype as one of the top running backs in Class 5A, if not the state, and the Capital Jaguars had a front-row seat to the festivities.
See ran for 180 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Knights to a convincing 34-7 win in what amounted to a District 2-5A championship game, even though the district season is just two weeks old. At 3-3-1 overall and 2-0 in the district, Del Norte simply has to beat Española Valley and Albuquerque Academy to secure its second 2-5A title in the last three years.
Those two teams will get an up close and personal look at the 6-foot-1, 210-pound See, who blends power and speed into a dangerous combination on the football field. Oh, and add patience to that list.
See had only 17 yards on his first seven carries, which is a far cry from his usual 10-yards-per-carry average he brought into the game. See credited part of the slow start to Capital’s defense, which blitzed heavily to slow down the Knights’ ground game. The plan had a short shelf life, though, as Del Norte fixed its blocking scheme and See began to rip off large chunks of yardage.
“They came out with a different look than we were expecting,” See said. “Their linebackers were closer, so we had to talk to the offensive line. Once we wore them down, we started hitting them three, four yards at a time.”
It started with a four-carry stretch in which See gained 37 yards, with the final 10 completing a 49-yard drive with the first of his touchdown runs that made it 14-0. Starting with that drive, See was his usual self, gaining 163 yards on 16 carries.
“For a guy who weighs 200 pounds, that is a very special young man,” Del Norte head coach Bruce Binkley said. “He’s the best running back that I’ve ever been around. … Avery is patient and you saw that. We’d do a basic dive and we’d get man-on-man, and Avery would take his couple of steps and just do his thing.
“That’s not coaching. That’s just a good kid being a great player.”
His most explosive run began the second half, as he took a handoff from quarterback Devante Garcia and blasted through the heart of the Capital defense almost untouched for a 40-yard touchdown run to make it 24-0, Del Norte, with 9:54 left in the third quarter.
“I told the kids if we score on that first drive in the third quarter, the game is probably over because it’s going to be hard for them to score 24 points,” Binkley said. “And you’ll take them out of what they do.”
Binkley saw what Del Norte’s defense was doing to Capital’s offense, as it managed just 38 yards in the first half and produced only two first downs.
And the Jaguars’ I-formation was not designed to rally from such big deficits. It didn’t help when Cisco Leos threw an interception after See’s second touchdown that set Del Norte up at the Capital 21-yard line. See needed two carries to score his final touchdown (from 2 yards out) and give the Knights a 31-0 lead.
“Any time you get behind, it gets harder,” Capital head coach Bill Moon said glumly. “We just couldn’t handle the line of scrimmage, and the team that can handle the line of scrimmage wins.”
Capital (2-5, 1-1) finally got on the scoreboard when senior running back J.R. Vargas plowed over the left side and then down the sideline for a 34-yard touchdown to make it 31-7 with 4:20 left in the third. Vargas was the line bright spot during an unhappy homecoming game, as he managed 132 yards on 20 carries.
Now, the Jaguars are in a must-win mode the rest of the year. If they win their last three games – at Española Valley, home to Albuquerque Academy, then a regular-season finale on Nov. 4 against Los Alamos – they have a shot at 5-5 and sneaking into the playoffs. But the Hilltoppers, which beat the Chargers 44-7 on Friday, also can entertain hopes of making the playoffs by winning their last two games to get to 6-4.
Binkley feels that the winner of that Jaguars-Hilltoppers game has a strong argument for making the playoffs, which would make it two straight years the district gets two teams in the playoffs. The prior six years, the district managed to get only the district champion into the 12-team playoff.
“If they are going to let Aztec or some of those teams in, then they should let Capital or Los Alamos in,” Binkley said. “They’re every bit as good as those teams.”