Pueblo Surging, But ‘Major Mountain’ Awaits Tonight

Pueblo vs. Nogales is also KOLD 13 Game of the Week:

Pueblo will look to stretch their winning streak to four straight games Friday night when the Warriors host Nogales in a Week 5 high school football matchup.

Pueblo (3-1) opened the season with a late one-point loss at Amphi but has rolled off victories over Santa Rita, Rio Rico and Rincon.

The Warriors are led by 1st-year head coach Brandon Sanders, a former Arizona Wildcats defensive star who made it to the NFL with the New York Giants.

The Apaches enter at 2-2 having won two straight over Douglas and Cholla.

Nogales at Pueblo is our Overtime Game of the Week. David Kelly will be lives from the south side with a report in during the KOLD News 13 at 6 and you can see the game highlights Friday night on Overtime which kickoffs on KOLD News 13 at 10:20 p.m.

Jorge Romero (Class of 2016)

Pueblo’s Memo Berube and Jorge Romero both had doubts about their football team coming into this season. In fact, Berube, a senior, was toying with the idea of hanging up his cleats for good.
He’s glad he didn’t.

In just four games, Pueblo (3-1) has already matched its win total from each of the last three seasons. Furthermore, a win tonight would mark just the second time in the last 10 years the Warriors have registered four victories in a season.

“I’ve never felt this great during football,” said Berube, who missed most of last season with a left knee injury. “I wasn’t expecting as good of a season so far and came into the spring with some doubts.”

First-year coach Brandon Sanders and the Warriors host Nogales tonight at 7 with a chance to win their fourth straight game — a rarity in itself for Pueblo recently.

To make sure his players aren’t coming into the game overconfident, Sanders has reminded them that they haven’t been within 49 points of the Apaches in the last two years.

Nogales (2-2) has won seven straight meetings between the schools, most recently with a 56-0 win 2013, and holds a 14-6 advantage in the series. The last time Pueblo topped the Apaches was in 2000.

Coach Brandon Sanders

“That’s a major mountain for these kids,” said Sanders, a member of the UA’s “Desert Swarm” defense in the mid-1990s and a former NFL player. “We don’t shy away from anything; we recognize it, we own up to it and we step up to take on the challenge.

“That’s what I want to see: Can we step up to the challenge to play?”

The Warriors have already conquered one challenge this season, scoring two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to rally against Santa Rita in Week 2. Since then, Pueblo has outscored opponents 81-12 in two games.

“It transitioned from the field to the locker room,” said Romero, a junior who leads the team with 581 yards rushing and six touchdowns. “You should have seen the lock room; there was so much adrenaline, you could see that we wanted to play.”

Since taking over last spring, Sanders has reconnected with Pueblo’s storied past. Former coach Curly Santa Cruz is among those who Sanders has brought in to speak with the team. After all, Santa Cruz spent 15 years with the program and was the last one to lead the Warriors to the state playoffs, in 1990. The way Romero sees it, however, that’s about to change.

“A lot of people have high expectations for us but there’s also still a lot of low,” Romero said. “We had doubts from a lot of people coming into the season but we’re ready to prove them wrong.”

Courtesy of Tucson.com (Daniel Gaona)

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