Cleveland High football coach Kirk Potter knew his team wasn’t facing a pushover Friday night.

“If they’re not the No. 1 team in the state, they’re probably just behind Lovington,” said CHS coach Kirk Potter before the teams met. ”They’re by far the class of the (Class 3A) field, them and Lovington.”

Then all his Storm (4-1) did was beat the Tigers (5-1) 24-22, after James Beasley kicked a 24-yard field with 46 seconds left in the game.

Stretch run: Cleveland's Iseha Conklin tries to avoid some Piedra Vista defenders during the Storm's first shutout on Sept. 26.

It was the fewest points scored this season by the Tigers.

Next stop for the Storm: their own stadium Friday night, when they’ll meet Cibola in Cleveland’s first District 1-5A game.

The Storm posted their first shutout in school history on Sept. 26, when they pounded the Panthers of Piedra Vista (0-5) 32-0 at Rio Rancho Stadium.

Piedra Vista, shut out for the fourth time this season, may not want to face a Rio Rancho team again, having been whipped 38-0 at Hutchinson Stadium in Farmington by the Rams in 2008.

Piedra Vista ran only three plays on the Storm’s side of the field in the game and converted only twice on its dozen third-down plays.

The Storm left no doubt as to which team was better, taking the opening kickoff and marching 96 yards on 12 plays. The Storm were aided by two long PVHS penalties, and scored on a 1-yard run by scoring leader Iseha Conklin.

With kicker Andy Smith off playing soccer, which he was doing again when the Storm were in Raton, Beasley attempted but missed the point-after.

Nobody knew it at the time, but the six points were enough to win.

Conklin scored his second TD of the day in the second quarter, capping a 68-yard, four-play drive with a 4-yard run. His 25-yard run on the previous play set up the short sprint to pay dirt. A run for two points failed, and the Storm took a 12-0 lead into the locker room at intermission.

Chris Petro, playing an outstanding game on defense, recovered a Panthers fumble early in the second half — Piedra Vista coughed up the ball four times and threw two passes CHS defenders picked off.

On a fourth-down play four plays later, quarterback Garrett Hayes, stepping for starter Travis Lonergan after a minor leg injury in the first half, threw a 13-yard TD pass to Reece White. Beasley’s PAT gave the Storm a 19-0 lead, with 4:23 left in the third period.

The Storm got the second of three Hayes TD passes, again to White, 12 seconds into the fourth period. This one covered 64 yards, with White outracing the Panthers’ secondary, headed south to the end zone. Beasley’s kick made it 26-0.

After another Panthers fumble, Hayes hooked up with tight end Tyler Torres on a 36-yard scoring strike for the game’s final points.

Torres used a nifty straight-arm tactic on a Panther to get into the end zone.

Hayes completed only three passes in his eight attempts, but all three were worth six points apiece.

“We really had a good game plan,” said Hayes, who went to the game expecting to get some carries out of the backfield and be a hard-hitting linebacker — not knowing Lonergan would need relief. “We need to work a little bit more on offense, but the defense played pretty good.”

“We played great defense and we threw the ball effectively, we just didn’t run the ball very well,” Potter said.

Storm warning: Conklin’s father, Joe, was the defensive coordinator for Raton in 1992, the year the Tigers played Artesia for the Class AAA state championship.

… Piedra Vista has had good teams before, with victories over the visiting Rams in 2000 (37-35) and 2002 (28-6).

… Stat of the week: Cleveland has won more games at Rio Rancho Stadium than the Rams. The next time the Storm play at Rio Rancho Stadium, they’ll be facing the Rams in an important 1-5A contest. That’s on Oct. 30.

… The Storm’s game with Cibola Friday will kick off at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast by KQTM-FM, “The Team” (101.7-FM). “I’m looking forward to being on our (new turf field),” Potter said.

... In spite of the Storm’s success, the team seemingly hasn’t garnered more than a few voites thus far in the various football polls. CHS had received votes before in KRQE-TV’s all-classes media poll, but noine last week. The Storm didn’t receive a single vote for the top 10 in the 5A coaches poll.

... The Storm head to Potter’s old stomping grounds, Carlsbad, for their Oct. 16 game. Potter coached the Cavemen for several seasons and was on the Carlsbad sideline the only time Rio Rancho played there — in the 2000 state playoffs, a Cavemen victory.