Socorro suffers growing pains in 34-0 loss

While it was a game much closer than the score indicated, the No. 4 Socorro Warriors came out on the wrong end of a 34-0 score against No. 2 Robertson’s Cardinals on Friday night in the season football opener for both teams.

Socorro is going through some growing pains under new head coach Derek Smith, and the Warriors were shorthanded with seven players unable to suit up for one reason or another.

It wasn’t the result Smith wanted, but at the same time, he saw some things that made him happy.

“I saw a lot of positive things. We are going to go through some growing pains, and we are going to figure out who needs to be where,” Smith said. “I feel that it was a pretty good performance. There were little mishaps here and there, like awareness on the field, being able to get in there and make plays when you’re supposed to.”

It was evident that some players experienced first-game jitters, and with multiple roles being taken on, a few mistakes were bound to occur.

Smith took full blame for not being able to run out the clock at the end of the first half, and it gave the Cardinals a short field, which they turned into a 21-0 halftime score. Robertson used a sustained opening drive and a long pass play to set up their first two scores.

Socorro made some defensive mistakes, but as Smith points out, they are “correctable ones.”

“We had to interchange a lot of kids, so a lot of them didn’t really know where they were playing at. We had to improvise and put them in there, hoping for the best. I’m happy with these guys. We’re missing quite a few guys, and we responded well to that adversity,” Smith said.

Despite being down 21-0 heading into the third quarter, Socorro played a much better second half and burned 7:15 off the clock during a long drive that ended with an interception.

“In the first half, they’re not really settled in, and they’re still trying to figure out what’s going on with there. There are a lot of different positions that we were trying to fill out,” Smith said. “That one little lapse at the end of the first quarter did hurt. The guys made mistakes, and I made mistakes, and now we will get to work at fixing them.”

Smith planned to have his players take Saturday off while he reviewed film and got ready to take on Thoreau. The 0-1 Hawks fell 8-6 against Tucumcari.

Friday’s kickoff is set for 7 pm.