Life on the road is not easy, and when you are playing the 2025 4A Bloomfield Bobcats it's a little more than hard. The Grants High School Pirates learned that last Friday when they were shut out by the number 1 team in 4A, the Bloomfield Bobcats.
“Not much I can say about Bloomfield other than to say, they are a great program that has been building for years,” said GHS head football Coach Steve Brown of that loss. “Ultimately it takes extreme commitment from kids and parents—they have 100 kids and parents in their program.”
On the other side of the weekend, there is a silver lining as the Pirates received a 7th seed in the Nusenda 4A state football playoffs and will host the 10th seeded Silver Colts on Saturday, November 8 at 1 pm at the Port of the Pirates.
“It’s going to be an exciting matchup,” said Brown of the upcoming playoff game.
The Fighting Colts came in at 6-4, 2-4 and were 7th out of 7 teams in their tough district. Silver’s district, 24A, is sending every team in their district to the state playoffs and all are ranked higher than Silver and they will come in battle tested and hardened.
“Silver has a great history —they are tough both physically and mentally,” said Brown. “They present tough matchups but again I feel we can match them spot for spot.”
Silver fields a senior quarterback, Josiah Madrid, who has a 89 percent quarterback rating and has thrown for 1,150 passing yards. Madrid has completed 13 touchdown passes this season to date, however, he has thrown 7 interceptions also. Top scorers for the Fightin Colts are running back and wide receiver Mekhi Grant with touchdowns followed by sophomore running back Cody Cooper and senior wide receiver Milo Brines with three touchdowns apiece.
Silver has a 52 percent completion percentage with an average of 13 yards per completion. The Colts average 6.6 yards per carry rushing.
On defense, Silver averages 43 tackles per game and they have had four interceptions this season.
The Pirates, also battle tested, have the home field advantage, however, the loss of senior quarterback Tristin Fernandez, who had a great season until his injury a few weeks ago leaves the Pirates with a less experienced but nonetheless competent quarterback at the helm.
DJ Chavez, a senior, will be quarterbacking for the Pirates this Saturday.
Chavez has a 54 percent completion rating and with limited game time has one passing touchdown since taking over the helm of the Pirates. DJ will be looking for his top offensive performers this game.
Senior wide receiver Isaiah Ortega leads the Pirates in receiving yards with 71 yards per game and eight receiving touchdowns followed by Cardenio Chavez averaging 41 yards per game with 7 touchdowns. Freshman sensation Julian “JuJu” Fernandez who averages 22 yards per game receiving and has had w receiving touchdowns. When it comes to rushing for the Pirates Fernadez leads the Pirate crew with an average of 74 yards per game and 14 rushing touchdowns. Fernandez also had notable four touchdowns two weeks ago against Bernalillo.
Senior running back Joe Clawson, who will be back this week after being injured for 2 games, averages 31 yards per game and adds another offensive weapon for the Pirates for Saturday’s game. Clawson had 4 rushing touchdowns this season.
On defense the Pirates average 60 tackles a game and have had 21 interceptions for the season.
“We are going into this week to focus on details— controlling silly mistakeslike cheap penalties that put us behind the 8 ball and limit our opportunities to be successful,” said Brown.
“We are focused on precision route running and making the blocks downfield.” Brown added,“That is blocking correctly in the run game to maximize the talent we have in the backfield.”
The bottom line Brown is happy to make the playoffs for a third year in a row and in his words “excited for another opportunity to play in front of our home fans.” Brown encourages the community to come out and support the Pirates and “help us to get to another playoff win.”
Game time is at 1pm Saturday, November 8 at the Port of the Pirates.