ALBUQUERQUE – Unable to convert a fourth-and-a-foot play deep inside West Mesa territory, the Cleveland High football team lost its finale, 13-7, last Saturday.

The Storm (5-5, 1-3) and Mustangs (4-6, 2-2) were playing at Milne Stadium, where the District 1-5A championship game had been played one night earlier, a thrilling 43-39 victory for Rio Rancho.

There wasn’t any drama and little excitement Saturday afternoon in what amounted to the game to determine who finished third and who would be fourth in 1-5A. Gallup (1-9, 0-4) already had dibs on last place.

Adam Grau, center, with ball, gets good blocking as he looks for running room against the Mustangs.

Cleveland denied the Mustangs on fourth-down plays twice in the red zone, but the Storm had two costly turnovers in the second half to go with that failed fourth-and-short play in the fourth quarter.

The Storm scored on its first possession, after a defender knocked down a pass by Mustangs’ quarterback Matthew Jaramillo.

After a holding penalty put the ball on the Mustangs’ 3, quarterback Travis Lonergan guided the Storm on a 14-play drive to paydirt, eating up what was left of the opening quarter and giving his team a 6-0 lead with 10:30 to go before halftime.

Adam Grau was the workhorse on the drive, carrying the ball nine times for 60 yards, including the 6-yard run into the end zone.

James Beasley’s point-after, as it turned out, was the Storm’s final point of the season.

West Mesa responded with a TD on its next offensive play, a catch-and-run from Jaramillo to Daniel Salazar that covered 47 yards. The PAT knotted the game at 7-all.

The Storm had the ball three more times in the half, twice going three-and-out and fumbling the ball away on another occasion.

In the second half, the Storm, in order, went three and out, saw Lonergan throw an interception returned for the winning TD, three and out and came up short on a fourth-down carry by Grau at the Mustangs’ 16.

“I felt like we did a good job defensively; we did a good job in the red zone,” said head coach Kirk Potter. “We had a missed opportunity down there, too. It could have been a 14-0 game if we tackle on one play and don’t fumble on the end zone.

“It was hard-fought, we just didn’t have enough punch there at the end,” he said. “The penalties … We can’t be a team that goes first-and-20 and have very much success. We have to be a team with second-and-six or second-and-five … so penalties killed us.”

Although Storm fans booed the officials lustily and one fan could be heard yelling, “How can you sleep at night?” Potter wouldn’t add fuel to the fire.

“I’m not really supposed to comment on that but I doubt I see these officials again,” he said.

Potter said the team had work to do before the 2010 season begins and that starts in the weight room.

“We need a little more quickness, a little more speed, but what we need most is strength,” he said. “We were victims of lack of strength, because lots of times we were starting seven sophomores out there on the field and some juniors that had never been through an off-season program. So we were under-strengthed.

“I think when we come back next fall we’re going to have a real good strength game, I’m sure we’ll be faster, we’ll be quicker, and I think those natural improvements will make a difference. … We’ve got the facility and the plan to get it done, so I have faith in these guys and it’s a great nucleus of young talent.”

The Storm were without junior running back Iseha Conklin, who’d scored 2-0 touchdowns before getting injured a week earlier in the loss at Rio Rancho.

“He was our leading receiver and our leading rusher, so, yeah, we missed him, but Adam did a good job,” Potter said. “(Conklin’s) our leading returner; he played a bog role on defense. So we lost three positions when he came out of the game, when he wasn’t able to play.

“I really think that we’ve got a great start and this team is going to come back tooled to really be something special,” Potter said. “I thought we fought hard today. I told them I’m pleased with their effort; I’m a lot more pleased with their effort than I was last week.”

Storm warnings: If the state playoffs took only teams with .500 or better records, the Storm would have made the postseason. Of the dozen teams in the 5A bracket, two had losing records: Hobbs (3-7) and Carlsbad (4-6), the 11 and 12 seeds. In addition to the Storm, Valley (6-4) also got omitted despite a .500 or better record.