Roman Martinez wasn’t supposed to be a part of such a special season. In his senior year, the UNM men’s basketball team was picked to finish fifth in the Mountain West Conference.
The Mountain West Conference issued UNM head basketball coach Steve Alford a public reprimand for “unduly” verbal language aimed at BYU senior Jonathan Tavernari, after the Lobos defeated the Cougars at the Provo, Utah Marriott Center on Saturday, 83-81.
Never in her wildest dreams did Sandy Fortner envision the last year of her college career to be such a wild and bumpy ride. Fortner, a Fort Sumner native, returned to the top of the peak at the Mountain West Conference Indoor Championships during the women’s high jump on Friday at the Albuquerque Convention Center. After busting her kneecap last year, Fortner broke her own UNM school record with an NCAA qualifying score of 4,147.
As humdrum stories go, this one seemed to have an especially foreseeable conclusion. As expected, Lee Emanuel, the defending NCAA indoor mile champion, glazed the one-mile field of competitors at the Mountain West Conference Indoor Championships inside the Albuquerque Convention Center Saturday, racing to first place with a time of 4:05.85 (4:00.53 altitude-adjusted) and smashing the previous Mountain West Conference record of 4:10.04.
Welcome to the world of road cycling, where millimeters and seconds make a huge difference. UNM Cycling Team President, John Heine, has been a part of the team for a year and wants cycling to get stronger in the community.
For four seniors, Saturday was the last game they would play at The Pit. Amy Beggin, Jessica Kielpinski, Valerie Kast and Georonika Jackson finished the afternoon the same way they started — with a 16-3 run.
Teeming with pride, the UNM baseball team was still, apparently, making a Texas toast to themselves. Briefly, the Lobos dawdled with Northern Colorado, a team they beat handily last season by a combined three-game score of 46-9.
Last season, the UNM men’s basketball team captured a share of the Mountain West Conference championship with a win in its final game of the season. Saturday, the Lobos sealed that title a game earlier, with an 83-81 win against BYU in Provo, Utah.
It’s home sweet home for the UNM baseball team. The Lobos (2-1), ranked No. 19 in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper, have their home opener today, a four-series against Northern Colorado at Isotopes Park. Northern Colorado will play its first games of the season.
The Mountain West Conference caucuses are over. The time for teams to put in their applications for first-place candidacy has come and gone.
Trudgingly, the UNM women’s basketball team trekked to a 65-50 victory over downtrodden Colorado State. For the greater part of 30 minutes, the Lobos (16-10, 8-6 Mountain West Conference) slogged toward the finish line — but they did finish, stringing together enough effort in a concentrated four-minute period to open the second half, in which Eileen Weissmann had four points, one coming off a 3-pointer.
Perhaps nobody in the state of New Mexico is aware that Ray Birmingham is actually a seer. When the Lobo head coach scheduled Texas, he seemed to be aiming for impossible targets without all his bullets — the Lobos lost several seniors from last year’s team, and this year, as it seems every year, was coined a rebuilding year by pundits, Birmingham said. Let this serve as a notice. The UNM baseball team marched into No.
A normal collegiate track athlete might compete in up to four events. When Lobo track and field athlete Richard York steps onto the curved slopes of an indoor track, he competes in seven.
And to think, the UNM men’s basketball was on the verge of blowing its 10-game win streak, No. 12 national ranking, the Mountain West lead and, potentially, the regular-season championship. With three minutes left, the Lobos were down three to Air Force (9-16 overall and 1-11 MWC), the worst team in the MWC. But in what is fast becoming a signature, the Lobos survived, coming out with a 59-56 win inside The Pit on Saturday off of Darington Hobson’s game-winning layup with 16 seconds left in the game. Including Saturday’s win, the Lobos (25-3, 11-2 MWC) have won three of the last five games decided by less than four points and won all eight games this season decided by four or less points. “For whatever reason, if you look at those last four-minute games, we have won a lot,” said head coach Steve Alford.
It couldn’t have been a better home-opening weekend for the UNM softball team. The Lobos nearly swept Seattle, winning three of four games over the weekend at the UNM Softball Complex.
The UNM women’s tennis team was blanked by Kansas State on Sunday at UNM’s Linda Estes Tennis Center. The Lobos failed to win a match in the 7-0 loss, but head coach Roy Cañada said the match was closer than the score indicated. “It was actually a very close match,” he said.
Head UNM baseball coach Ray Birmingham said he will chew the ears off the competition on the field. And in interviews, he will talk the ears off reporters about two things — New Mexico and baseball. “I have been coaching a long time in this state, the greatest state in the union,” Birmingham said.
Behind a pitching screen, 30 feet from the plate, Lobo head coach Ray Birmingham stands protected — a Kmart basket full of baseballs, all from different walks of thread. There’s the “old and beat up” ones that “run in on your hands,” said outfielder Ryan Honeycutt, the ones that “tail away from you” and the ones that “go even faster.” And now, Honeycutt is next to step into the cage, next to be victimized. There he is — straddling the left side of the plate, knees slightly bent, hands faintly choked up on the handle of the bat, the alternating zip of the ball leaving the machine, the echoic “ping” of the baseball as Honeycutt makes contact and the ever-occasional thump of a ball hitting the backstop. The latter sound, that solid wallop, signifies it’s time to take a seat on the pine.
“Whenever and wherever” seems to be UNM head baseball coach Ray Birmingham’s unofficial motto. Anytime, anyplace, Birmingham said he and his boys will play the best teams that college baseball has to offer. “I am proud to be a New Mexican, and I am going to go to Texas and tell them,” Birmingham said.
Heath Schroyer was dressed appropriately for the occasion. The Wyoming head coach suited up in all black for the Cowboys’ burial in the depths of The Pit on Wednesday, as the UNM men’s basketball team blitzed to an 83-61 win. The only thing that was remotely in doubt — other than another UNM win — was if Lobo fans would get their reduced-price tacos from Taco Bell on Thursday (the fast-food restaurant hands out cheap tacos if the Lobos score 65 points or more) — that is until UNM guard Jamal Fenton drained three free throws with 9:49 to go in the game, giving UNM a 67-37 advantage.
Solutions by The State News
