The Marcos de Niza equipment manager didn’t bring a hacksaw to Tempe so Christian Garcia hatched a different plan.

The senior running back let it be known, rather emphatically, that his status had been upgraded even if he couldn’t actually remove the cumbersome cast on his left hand.

Two-and-half games was enough. The 1,200-yard rusher was returning to offense. He was taking the ball.

The message was received by the offensive coordinator in the third quarter, it was passed on to head coach Anthony Figueroa and Garcia ended up cutting through the Buffaloes’ defense to help the Padres to a 36-30 win to secure a 4A playoff position and the Black Canyon Region title in the regular season finale.

Garcia had a 75-yard touchdown to give Marcos the lead at 28-27 and then helped run out the clock with 10-plus yard runs.

“I took the initiative to tell the coaches,” said Garcia, a senior who transferred from Williams Field before his sophomore year. “I told them, ‘Let me get this done for the team. I can do this.’

"They put their trust in me and we got it done.”

Marcos (8-2, 5-0) earned the win behind Garcia’s powerful running, the defense’s two-goal line stands and an offense that showed resiliency and the ability to answer back despite several position changes and new starters in recent weeks.

“I just know what he has in him,” Figueroa said of Garcia. “You can see the dog in him. I know my OC was thinking about it. The kid got us to this point. He wasn’t going to be stopped.”

The Padres led 21-14 lead at halftime, but Tempe (8-2, 4-1) took leads of 27-21 late in the third quarter and 30-28 early in the fourth on touchdowns by John Walter Ramos and Jaleel West, respectively.

Marcos took the lead for good on DeVaughn Traylor’s second touchdown with 7:46 remaining in the game, but it was very much in peril as the Buffalo offense, which started on its own 48, positioned itself at the 5-yard line with about 5 minutes remaining.

The Padres defense fended off Tempe on four attempts with sophomore Jah’Kiem Gipson and senior Carlos Abeyta converging to stone West on the 5-yard to set the stage for Garcia.

On back-to-back carries Garcia broke through the initial wave of Tempe’s defense and reached the second level. Garcia and his offensive line essentially sealed the game, although the Buffaloes regained possession with 10 seconds and 63 yards to go for the potential win.

Garcia, who is also a linebacker but moved to cornerback because of the cast, and his 10 defensive brethren didn’t let it happen and pulled out the win.

“It’s really about doing your assignment,” Garcia said. “They became repetitive at the end and we had to use our natural instincts. We took cues as to what they were going to do next. We all communicated properly and that’s how we stopped them right where they were.”

Not to be overlooked, the offense, behind 5-foot-7 quarterback Brigham Brown, who took over at quarterback on Oct. 2 and has thrown 10 touchdowns with three interceptions, scored three times through the air while Gipson ran for a score and about 90 yards in the first half before Garcia found his way back to the offense.

The was a emotional stunner for Tempe, which has had a terrific season as the Buffaloes continue to rebuild under Sean Freeman.

He took over a team on 15-game losing streak and it reached 23 before ending on Oct. 14 2022. Before the Tempe Turnaround started showing up on the scoreboard, the Buffaloes went 1-28 from Nov. 8, 2019 to Aug. 26, 2023.

Since then Tempe has gone 26-14 and a win Friday likely meant a prized playoff position for the first time since 2014, but it appears it wasn’t meant to be as the #TempeTurnaround now has a goal for next season.

 

The game was marred by more than 25 penalties called (eight of which were of the 15-yard variety) as the emotions of a heated neighborhood rivalry often took over after the whistle blew and there were several helmets thrown out of frustration.

It nearly turned ugly in the postgame handshake, but for the most part the coaches, security and administration tampered a combustible scenario.

“I have the upmost respect for Coach Freeman and what he has done with the program,” Figueroa said. “I am super proud of how our guys responded. It comes down to 10 percent of what is happening and 90 percent how you respond to it. There’s definitely things that need to be cleaned up and we can’t allow those things to compromise what we worked for up to this point.

“We trust. We spend so much time together. They did what they needed to do in big moments in an emotionally challenging game.”

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