Lovington and St. Michaels are not strangers to each other in the playoffs going all the way back to the title game in 1958.  They have played 10 times, five of which were for the championship.  The Wildcats have won eight times but only lead 3-2 in championship games. 

     Perhaps not too surprising since they are 285 miles apart, these two schools have never played each other in a regularly scheduled game. 

     Last week Lovington won, 5-0, while St. Mikes won, 8-7.  That doesn’t quite jive with history.  The winner of games between them have averaged over 30ppg and loser hasn’t done bad either with a 15ppg average.  They last played in the quarterfinals last season with the Wildcats prevailing 42-26. 

     I’m one of these guys that always gives the edge to the southern team due to the history of the matter.  Last season the northern most champion for all of the seven football classifications was the Santa Rosa Lions.  In fact, if you take Mayfield out of the mix, the western most champion was the Artesia Bulldogs.  Basically, the closer you are to the Texas border, the better football you play.  That might explain Aztec’s 58 year title drought.

     However, is all that changing?  La Cueva started the whispers about an Albuquerque dynasty with its 2003-04 titles.  How about Santa Rosa’s exciting repeat over Eunice last weekend.  Eunice was 12-5 in title games and just doesn’t lose when they have a good team like this year’s version.

     The magical  year of 2007 saw a changing of the guard in 3A for the Yankees as all four finalist were from District 2.  It is the only time in history that four teams from the same league were in the Semi-finals (St.Mikes, Robertson, Raton, Academy).  Surely that is a signal of a shift. 

     All of this being said, St. Michaels looks like the better team on paper but Lovington is the defending champs and, well, they are closer to Texas.

Lovington 28 St. Mikes 26