Cibola hands Kofa fourth straight loss

Looking for better execution from his team's passing game, Cibola coach Lucky Arvizo Sr. found what he was looking for against Kofa.

Looking for a touchdown against the Raiders, acting Kofa coach Fernando Solano and his Kings came up just short.

The Raiders rolled to a 57-3 win on Friday, the fourth straight loss for the Kings.

Jordan Mitchell had his standard huge game on the ground for Cibola (3-1) — 141 yards and two touchdowns on 10 carries. Arvizo Sr. said he was pleased with the improvement in the air attack — quarterback Lucky Arvizo Jr. completed 5 of 6 passes, each to a different receiver, and threw for two touchdowns.

“We worked on it this week and executed a little better in the first half,” Arvizo Sr. said. “We're going to continue to work on it to complement Jordan. Obviously Jordan does a great job running the ball, and we're going to continue to try to complement Jordan and help him out.”

Kofa (0-4) had a chance to score late against the Raiders, with its starters in against the Raiders' backups in a first-and-goal situation on the 1, but three straight false starts backed the ball up and the Kings settled for a 27-yard field goal by Carlos Caratachea.

The Kings did have some success in the passing game, with quarterback Michael Torres connecting seven times with Dion Merriweather for 137 of the 139 Kofa passing yards.

“They have a really good run defense, so we had to throw the ball around a little bit more, mix it around,” Solano said. “We tried some new things to move the ball around. We were really trying to get in the endzone today, but we got some points at the end, so we're pretty happy about that.”

Solano had no comment as to why Kings coach Kevin Moore was not coaching the team. Kofa principal Mike Sharp said “it is a personnel issue we're dealing with” and had no further comment — including on whether Moore would be back on the sidelines next week.

Arvizo Jr. said the Raiders have been working in practice to perfect their rhythm.

“We've been working on it in practice a lot more, not throwing the deep ball every time,” Arvizo Jr. said.

Mitchell scored touchdowns on the first two Raider possessions. Early in the second quarter, Kofa put a drive together — converting two long third downs, both to Merriweather. One was on third-and-19, one was third-and-21.

“He's just kind of been our fly sweep guy, but we're going to utilize him a little bit more,” Solano said. “He can really catch it going down the field.”

So facing a third-and-19, Torres tried to find Merriweather on a backward pass, but the throw was errant. Cibola's Michael Campos returned it 48 yards for the score and a 21-0 lead. On the first play of the next drive Campos intercepted Torres, who was trying to find Merriweather. Two plays later, Arvizo Jr. threw a touchdown to Daren Morningstar to give the Raiders a 28-0 lead on the back of two scores in 40 seconds.

The Raiders travel to Brawley next week, while the Kings host San Luis.