St. Michael's needed to find something in an inevitable outcome to carry over to next week.

George Dominguez and Brian Baca gave it to the Horsemen.

It came in two plays of an otherwise pedestrian 56-20 win by St. Michael's over the Wingate Bears in the opening round of the Class AAA state football playoffs at Brother Abdon Field on Saturday.

The win allowed the fifth-seeded Horsemen to advance to a quarterfinal at No. 4 Socorro on Nov. 22.

It did not allow Dominguez or Baca, both cornerbacks, to avoid a stern talk from Joey Fernandez, the Horsemen head coach.

Already up 28-0, St. Michael's (7-4) was blindsided by No. 12 Wingate's connection of Sean Henry and Markus Hosteen. The pair torched Dominguez on a 52-yard touchdown pass at the 6-minute, 58-second mark of the second quarter for 28-6. Dominguez gave Hosteen plenty of room to haul in Henry's 30-yard throw, then slipped to the ground on Hosteen's zig, then zag to get past him and into the end zone.

St. Michael's followed that with a 73-yard, eight-play drive, ending with Jake Winter's 1-yard run for 34-6, but it was Baca's turn to play the victim.

Hosteen was 15 yards past Baca when Henry again hit him in stride for a 65-yard score for 34-12 with 2:34 before halftime.

Even though the Horsemen responded with a touchdown for a 41-12 halftime advantage, Fernandez already was thinking about Monday's practice.

"We found out we needed to work on our pass coverage," Fernandez said. "A game like this gives us a way to evaluate those things. It gives us a chance to improve on them."

What doesn't need to be improved upon is the play of Russell Disch and Manuel Trujillo. The pair recorded five touchdowns, with a punt return for a score for each.

Disch went 44 yards untouched in his return for 14-0 with 2:51 left in the first quarter. Trujillo's return went for 75 yards for 28-0 at the 8:54 mark of the second quarter.

Despite Hosteen's efforts, which included a 90-yard touchdown catch to make it 56-20, the Bears (8-3) continued a trend for District 1AAA teams. In all, 1AAA teams are an abysmal 1-18 in playoff games since the inception of five classes in 2000. Only Bloomfield, the second seed in the playoffs, has a postseason victory.

Wingate seemed to be the team that was playoff-ready at the start, as St. Michael's failed to even gain a first down on its first two drives.

Trujillo said the players fell into the trap that they could simply show up and beat the Bears.

"You think that it's an Indian school," Trujillo said. "That's how some of them see it. It's just an Indian school. Me and a bunch of teammates tried to instill in them the playoff intensity. It seemed like intensity was lacking for some reason."

First-year Wingate head coach Donald Pine is familiar with that perception. It's what he has tried to change in the program since he came on the staff four years. The result of that hard work was the Bears' first playoff appearance since the 1970s.

But he also recognizes Wingate and the rest of the district have a steep hill to climb to attain the kind of respect the Horsemen command.

"We hope to change the perception," Pine said. "We know that most teams come in thinking they'll beat us. We know that's the perception, and we hope to change that."

Contact James Barron at 986-3045 or jbarron@sfnewmexican.com.