Socorro senior Adadrian Jackson runs past a Piedra Vista JV player during the game Friday night. Jackson scored two of Socorro’s five touchdowns.
Caitie Ihrig | El Defensor Chieftain

The Socorro Warriors football team kicked off its season at home on Saturday with a 36-0 win over the Piedra Vista JV team.

Socorro was originally scheduled to play Crownpoint who had to cancel because they did not have enough players for a full team due to COVID-19 quarantines.

Warrior coach Damian Ocampo said he is glad Socorro won, but that they have a lot to work on before their next game.

“They played hard,” he said. “I thought they threw around a little bit. They were running hard. These kids were ready to play. They were excited. That was the best part — a lot of physical effort out there. Not a lot of mental.”

According to Ocampo, there are many new players this season along with freshmen and sophomores in the starting lineup.

“I’m happy with the effort out there, but I think we have a lot of brand new guys and those brand new guys, it’s easy to get caught up in everything that is going around instead of just your job,” he said. “It’s hard. Football is a hard sport. Everybody thinks it’s just about mashing each other, tackling and running, but there is so much finesse to it and it’s truly a game of inches.”

Socorro received the kickoff to start the game Saturday night against Piedra Vista and on the Warriors’ third play, senior cornerback Jordan Armijo ran the ball in for a touchdown from the 3-yard line. Senior kicker Jaydon Marsyla made the point after-attempt to put the Warriors ahead 7–0.

With less than six minutes left in the first Armijo added another six points to the board. Instead of going for the PAT, junior Caden Moreland made the catch in the endzone for a 2-point conversion.

The Warriors’ final touchdown of the first quarter came with 1:50 remaining when Adadrian Jackson caught the ball in the endzone. To put Socorro ahead 22–0, Marsyla made the PAT.

Jackson scored both Warrior touchdowns in the second quarter with the first one at the 7:31 mark when he ran the ball into the endzone as quarterback. With a successful PAT from Marsyla, Socorro extended its lead to 28–0. As no points were scored in the second half, the final touchdown of the game happened at the 3:21 mark when Jackson caught the ball and ran into the endzone on second down.

Marsyla made his fourth successful PAT of the night to make the score 36–0.

Against Piedra Vista, Ocampo said there were plays which worked really well but that the Warriors can’t continually run the same plays each game and throughout the whole game.

“We have to run other things and the other things we ran need work to say the least,” he said. “Here’s the deal, we have the toughest schedule that I have ever seen Socorro have, at least since I’ve been here. We have like a murderous row of good team after good team. I’ll tell you what, it’s going to be a big learning experience. Win, lose or draw for the next chunk of weeks, but we will be battle tested.”

Ocampo said he is going to stress to his players that even though they won, there is still work to be done.

Socorro will face Miyamura at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, August 27 in Gallup.

Caitie Ihrig