Reigning champs Storm looking to repeat in '25

RIO RANCHO — If you arrived at Thunderbolt Stadium on Thursday night, you were met with distant yells of excitement from the locker room, Moses Sparks hyping up the Storm during stretches, and a football team ready to begin the season.

The 2025 Cleveland High football team made a lot of first impressions in a scrimmage versus Eldorado, but to sum it up, the Storm will be starting the season the same way they ended it last year: with a lot of energy.

“These guys are just as eager as last year’s team or the year before’s guys to protect the tradition we have around here,” Head Coach Robert Garza said. “These guys love football, and they’re eager to get out there and show everybody what they can do.”

Showing off their talent has been the name of the game for the Cleveland Storm football program. Last year’s state title marked the sixth in its short history, giving Garza his second championship in his three-year tenure.

Now in 2025, the Storm are looking at a reload rather than a rebuild.

“We just try to build around what we have, what we knew we had coming back. We have three starting offensive linemen coming back, a quarterback that’s coming off a second-team all-state season,” Garza said. “Very, very efficient. Really good year, and we just looked to build on what we had defensively.”

That quarterback is none other than Jordan Hatch, who threw for over 2,000 yards and 29 touchdowns in the championship season. Hatch, along with a crew of returning offensive linemen like Moses Sparks and Wyatt Lohr, is the reason why Cleveland has garnered pre-season votes to be the best team in the state once again.

That hype went from paper to turf on Thursday, with the offensive line giving Hatch all day to hook up on big passes to his receiving arsenal, including long touchdowns from junior receiver Ajay Vigil and co.

“It’s always good to line up against somebody else,” Garza said. “I feel like our line, on both sides of the ball, was able to handle the line of scrimmage and give us a chance to be successful.”

While it’s easy to get caught up in offseason hype and scrimmage highlights, it’s a new season and a new team, and the Storm are aware of that.

“It’s a new season; we’ve got to come with a new mentality. We’re a new team, and we have to find our own identity.”

If the 2025 team’s identity follows the mold of the Cleveland teams of the past, there is not much stopping the Storm from a seventh-straight state championship game appearance.

Cleveland will open the season against the Centennial Hawks in Las Cruces, with a 1 p.m. kick set for Saturday, Aug. 23.

“We’ve got to stay on them; yesterday’s accomplishments are over,” Garza said. “It’s a brand-new deal. Everybody’s going to give us their best game.”