GRANTS - It's being called the last installment of the Cibola Bowl Series, the sixth-straight football game between the Grants Pirates and Laguna-Acoma Hawks, and a look back at the five games between the two teams reveals much history and drama.

Luckily, most of the drama was kept to the football field, though a few bad apples marred what has been an otherwise enjoyable slate of games.

Cibola Bowl I came in 2004 with some fanfare - a matchup between two Cibola County teams, disparate in size but seemingly equal in excitement for playing football. That year, however, it was all Grants, as the Pirates trounced the visiting Hawks 34-12. It might have been that game that had people wondering just what both teams could get out of playing each other, but nevertheless, the series continued and when the two teams matched up in 2005, the outcome was the same, but the Hawks definitely made a game of it.

The pregame hype seemed a little higher, as both Grants and L-A were off to good starts to their seasons, thereby raising the stakes a bit. The Hawks were a perfect 4-0, quarterback Jonathan Gaco providing much of the spark for his team. Meanwhile, Grants had posted a 3-1 record and a number seven ranking in the 3A polls.

Even then-Head Coach Tom Camplain seemed to be affected by the talk swirling around the contest.

“It scares me to play them,” Camplain said at the time. “They have a talented quarterback (in Gaco) who can scramble and run the ball well.”

And despite an injury to quarterback Jeremy Baca, Grants rode the speedy legs of Gilbert Montoya, Ross Pynes and T.W. Jaramillo to a 13-7 victory, saved only by Keenan Sanshu, who intercepted a Gaco pass in the endzone for Grants' second straight Cibola Bowl win.

Then came Cibola Bowl III and some pregame antics that put a black eye on the series.

The Hawks' football press box was spray painted with Grants colors prior to the game, and later, Camplain received a bouquet of blue and white flowers, ostensibly from L-A fans looking to stir up the fiery head coach. In a not-public display, Camplain reportedly threw the flowers to the ground and stomped on them, and whatever message that sent to his players, it worked for the Pirates.

They decimated the Hawks 41-6, and again, people began to question the validity of the two teams playing each other.

“We're supposed to beat Laguna because they are a 2A school,” Camplain said at the time, “but what I don't understand is why we're supposed to beat them. Heck…they got more kids out for football than we do.”

Apparently, the Hawks were thinking the same thing, as they turned a 3-0 Cibola Bowl Series deficit on its ear.

L-A took a close, 14-8 victory in Cibola Bowl IV, a year that may have been the Pirates' worst (1-9 overall) in recent history.

After a blocked punt in the first quarter, the Hawks took an early 8-0 lead and quarterback Roy Kie added to the lead with a short touchdown that gave the home team a 14-0 advantage in the first half. That's all the Hawks would need, as the Pirates' turnover- and mistake-plagued game sealed their fate. After the game, Hawk players said they were fired up by Cibola Beacon writers who predicted yet another loss, and then head L-A coach Roy Manly credited his players for the gutsy victory.

Last year's Cibola Bowl - number five in the series - was short on pregame antics but long on story lines. First, both the Pirates and Hawks had new coaches: Butch Branson for Grants and Gary Spencer for L-A. And on a soggy September night, the new coaches and their new teams battled, with the Hawks finally coming out on top.

Charles Miller and Jeremy Chavez hooked up on a 60-yard touchdown with 6:12 remaining in the third quarter, but Grants still trailed 7-6. They took the lead at 12-7, after a Brandon Rael touchdown, but missed the extra point - for the second time on the night. This would prove to haunt the Pirates, as the late-game heroics of William Valencia and Justin “Boots” Gallegos helped L-A to the 13-12 win, its second win in a row.

After the game, Spencer told the Beacon, “I think when you play good teams it helps you all the way around.”

So why is it that, with the CBS (Cibola Bowl Series) now at 3-2 in favor of Grants, would this thrilling series be discontinued?

Former Grants assistant Robert Bassett, a coach at the time that the series was established, said he remembered very well while the two teams decided to come together for a game.

“I think we dropped Taos for that game, because of the travel,” Bassett said. “You have 280 miles (to Taos) to what, 28? Plus, the gate for these games was huge as well.”

Yet, Cibola Bowl VI will be done after this year, the decision apparently out of the coaches' hands. What's at stake then? A chance for L-A to even the series and prove something to Cibola County? A chance for L-A to bolster its case for a state tournament berth once the time comes? Of course, and there's probably not a single Hawk that would deny this.

At stake for Grants? Head Coach Dale Hooper calls it just another game, another opponent on the slate for his Pirates. Players who have been around awhile will say that there's much more than that. “To restore the order of things,” they might say, the order that a 4A team should always beat a team lower in class.

For fans of football there's more at stake: the chance to sit under the Friday night lights and witness a competitive and meaningful football game between two gutsy teams.