UNM’s freshmen are starting to make a name for themselves. Days after first-year guard Dane Kuiper set a career high in minutes and points, freshman Anthony Mathis did the same. His 16-point effort help lift the Lobos to a convincing 84-55 home victory over Air Force.
After opening the season with a victory over Colorado, the New Mexico women’s tennis team will host two schools this weekend. The Lobos will play Southern Illinois on Saturday, followed by a match against Northern Arizona on Sunday. Southern Illinois and Northern Arizona will face each other on Sunday as well.
New Mexico’s track and field team will be home again in the first scored event of the year, hosting the New Mexico Team Invitational. Head coach Joe Franklin said he is looking forward to the team taking some of the positive things that happened last weekend into this meet. He said that he is very excited and that this weekend is going to be a lot of fun.
After a 71-57 win against San Jose State to end New Mexico’s two game losing skid, head coach Yvonne Sanchez said she is not looking past a winless Air Force squad on the road. Sanchez said she knows the Falcons squad is no gimme. The last time Air Force was at home, the team barely fell to UNLV (11-7, 4-3 MW) in a 60-56 battle; a game Sanchez said the Falcons should have won.
Senior Allan Hamilton jumped 24 feet, 9 ½ inches (or 7.55 meters) this past weekend at the Cherry & Silver Invitational. The leap was not only the best collegiate jump at the invite, but was also enough to garner the MW Men’s Indoor Field Athlete of the Week. Accroding to a UNM release, the jump ranks him 19th in the nation and is best in the Mountain West by over six inches.
Preparing for Air Force’s rendition of the Princeton offense is among the toughest challenges New Mexico faces each year, according to coach Craig Neal. The Princeton style, dictated by constant movement on the floor, backdoor cuts and sound team discipline, means the Lobos’ Wednesday night contest should not be overlooked, even though the Falcons enter the game with just one Mountain West victory.
New Mexico leaves Los Angeles still looking to break its losing streak which has now swelled to seven consecutive loses. The men’s tennis team started play on Saturday squaring off against Georgia Tech. The team wasn’t able to secure a point in the matchup, losing 4-0.
The Lobos competed in the Spencer James Colorado Invitational this weekend, and finished in fifth-place overall, a similar spot in comparison to their last two events. The team scored a total of 514 points. 278 points came from the Nordic team, while 236 came from the alpine team.
The New Mexico women’s tennis team earned their first victory of the season by defeating The University of Colorado on Friday night. Kelcy McKenna’s tenure as head coach began with a victory as UNM defeated Colorado 5-2. She took over the team this past July and seemed to have the Lobos ready for spring competition. “What a great match. Colorado fought the whole time,” she said. “I was really proud of our girls and the way they competed from start to finish today.”
The New Mexico track and field squad turned in some impressive performances in its first action this season at the Cherry and Silver Invitational in Albuquerque. Head coach Joe Franklin said he was encouraged by the high marks on Saturday. Although there was no team scoring for the event, 12 Lobo athletes finished top 10 in a field of 566 competitors. Jannell Hadnot had the top performance in the women’s triple jump, executing a successful jump with a distance of 41 feet, 8 3/4 inches.
Khadijah Shumpert joined an elite club at New Mexico in a 71-57 victory over the visiting San Jose Spartans on Saturday afternoon. The senior forward collected 16 points to propel her past the career mark of 1,000 points during her tenure at New Mexico. She is just the 14th member to join the 1,000-point, 500-rebound club in program history.
With Cullen Neal back in Albuquerque on the concussion protocol, New Mexico relied heavily on his backcourt mate Elijah Brown on Saturday. Brown, the second-best scorer in the Mountain West, erupted for 33 points to lead the Lobos to a 83-64 victory over a struggling San Jose State team.
San Jose State hasn’t exactly had the easiest time in its first two years and a half years Mountain West Conference Since joining the league in 2013-14, the Spartans won just two MW games, one in that first season then a 62-55 victory over Wyoming this year. Coincidentally, San Jose State’s lone conference win happened against a Wyoming team that seven days ago defeated New Mexico by two points at WisePies Arena.
New Mexico head coach Yvonne Sanchez is not ready to scrap her coaching pedagogy just because her squad is in the midst of a slump. The head coach said in Thursday’s press conference that she needs to keep being patient in order to allow her team to come around.
Cullen Neal will miss Saturday’s game at San Jose State after sustaining a concussion on the last play against Wyoming, head coach Craig Neal announced Thursday afternoon. The Lobos' starting point guard is currently going through the University’s concussion protocol, and Craig Neal identified Cullen Neal as day to day in practice.
Tuesday not only marked the first day of class for the spring semester, but also the first day of practice for the New Mexico women’s tennis team as it prepares to host the first match of the season against Colorado. Kelcy McKenna is still in her first year as the new head coach, taking over the duties last July. McKenna said the team will feature three new faces on the court as well.
The New Mexico men’s and women’s track and field squad will hit the ground running on the newly resurfaced track to compete for the first time this year at home on Friday. Head coach Joe Franklin, in his ninth year of coaching the team, said that, overall, the team is healthy and excited to face competition. He said they will get a good test by facing strong competition right out of the gate. The head coach said that stiff competition and being home will both benefit the team.
New Mexico men’s tennis started the spring season with a win, but that was the only one it would pick up before leaving Lubbock, Texas.
Aaron Herrera finished his first season with the UNM men’s soccer team with a total of 1,332 minutes played after making 15 appearances, including 14 starts. But that is only a small part of the freshman defender’s resume, which he began to build quite early.
Slow tempo? What slow tempo? Wyoming head coach Larry Shyatt posed that question after the Cowboys’ 70-68 victory over New Mexico Saturday at WisePies Arena.
Solutions by The State News
