It's a 3A three-peat for St. Michael's football

Nov. 29—After three months of having their two hands wrapped about the entirety of Class 3A's throat, with a championship-level defense showing the way, the St. Michael's Horsemen were finally presented with an immense challenge on the season's last day.

To that end, the Horsemen hadn't allowed anyone to stay close to them in any game until the Dexter Demons faced them on Saturday.

Second-seeded Dexter, playing at home, led virtually the entire way in the 3A final, and was just a couple of minutes from closing out St. Michael's.

But the top-seeded Horsemen strung together their most clutch drive of the season, and quarterback Kamal Stith scored on a go-ahead 10-yard run with 1:13 to go, and No. 1 St. Michael's came back to beat the Demons 28-21 to clinch its third straight blue trophy.

"We gutted it out," Horsemen coach Joey Fernandez said. "I can't say enough about how the kids played."

With Las Cruces losing in the Class 6A title game, St. Michael's (13-0) finished as the only undefeated 11-Man team in the state. The Horsemen's winning streak was extended to 33 games.

But it was always in jeopardy on Saturday.

Dexter, riding its power run attack to reach the end zone on two early drives for a shocking 14-0 lead — no 3A team St. Michael's has faced this year had scored more than eight on them in an entire game — put the Horsemen in an unfamiliar position.

St. Mike's had the momentum at halftime, having scored on the final play of the half with Roman Barrera catching a touchdown pass to tie the game 14-all.

"We do have some firepower, once we figured out what we needed to do, we had to make some adjustments defensively to stop that run," Fernandez said.

But Dexter eventually took the lead again, 21-14. The Horsemen got a touchdown pass to Ryan Hunt with 8 minutes to go, but missed the PAT and faced a 21-20 deficit.

The Demons (10-2), moments later, attempted a fourth down, but were stopped with about four minutes to go, and St. Mike's had the ball in its hands with a chance to go ahead following that turnover on downs.

"The biggest thing was, us staying positive, start playing our type of football," Fernandez said.

Nobody had played St. Michael's closer than 22 points all season prior to Saturday.