by Travis Weber Daily Lobo The UNM Ice Wolves earned a hard-fought 7-5, 8-4 split against the Northern Arizona Ice Jacks in their last two games of the year this weekend at Outpost Ice Arena. Game one began Friday night and lasted until the early hours of Saturday morning.
Utah and UNM are so close to the NCAA tournament they can taste it. But only one team from the Mountain West Conference will go. Although the regular-season title is shared by Utah and UNM, there are several other teams that have the potential to steal the crown right from their grasp.
Melissa Forest Senior Basketball Forest had her second straight double-double Saturday against the Colorado State Rams, with 20 points and 12 rebounds. She went four of five from behind the arc and also had six blocks in her last regular season game.
Time to erase the memories and put to bed the what's, but's and if's of the regular season. March Madness has officially arrived. The teams of the Mountain West Conference embark to the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colo. on Thursday, vying for a ticket to the Big Dance.
Cooper Eddy pitched nine strong innings and Ryan Barba had five RBI with a grand slam in Sunday's dramatic 6-3 win over UC-Santa Barbara at Isotopes Field. The Lobos were down 2-1 when catcher A.J. Spitaleri stepped to the plate in the eighth with two men on base and two outs.
The Lobos welcome the University of California-Santa Barbara to Isotopes Park for a three-game series this weekend. The UCSB Gauchos come to Albuquerque for their first games outside of California. Their overall record is 8-5 and the Gauchos sit in fifth place in the Big West Conference.
Junior Ashley Perkins is quickly becoming one of the most feared pitchers in the Mountain West Conference. Already this season she has picked up two Mountain West Conference Pitcher of the Week awards and recorded four shutouts. Perkins is 7-0 on the season with 44 strikeouts in 57 innings for the resurgent Lobos.
The UNM women's golf team is making its way to the top of GolfWeek/Sagarin rankings. This week the Lobos were picked as the third-best team in the nation. The Lobos have been in reserve since Feb. 11, after taking second place at the 2004 Regional Challenge, and head coach Jackie Booth said they owe their advancement partly to the University of Arizona's fall on its own course last week.
Guess who has the No. 1 defense in the NCAA? No, it's not reigning champion UConn. It's not Pat Summitt's nation-leading Tennessee Volunteers, either. The University of New Mexico Lobos quietly moved into the top spot this week, after beating San Diego State 47-43 on Saturday.
If the Lobo men's basketball players looked in the mirror after Saturday night, they might see the faces of the San Diego State Aztecs. UNM can't win on the road - SDSU can't either. Both teams have combined for an 0-12 record on the road in the Mountain West Conference.
The 32nd-ranked UNM women's tennis team continued its impressive roll this spring with a 7-0 sweep of the Houston Cougars on Sunday. The Lobos got off to a quick start with three wins to earn the doubles point. At the No. 1 doubles spot, sophomore Maja Kovacek and senior Sandy Lukowski played patient, smart tennis to down Biljana Dimovska and Miranda Foley 8-5.
After Boise State came from behind to beat the Lobos Friday night, UNM bounced back as strong as ever and nearly swept the Colorado Buffaloes 6-1 Sunday afternoon at the Lobo Tennis Club. Men's head coach Alan Dils said on a scale of one to 10, he would rate the weekend as a seven.
This is how to break out of a slump. Soft-spoken starting guard Troy DeVries was electric from the outside against SDSU, hitting four 3-pointers and nailing each of his four free throws for 16 points in the game. It was a terrific performance from a key Lobo contributor who hadn't been playing his best lately.
Ashley Perkins Junior Softball Perkins pitched her fourth shutout of the season Sunday against the University of Texas- El Paso, allowing only two hits, one walk and striking out 10 of 24 batters. Perkins has shut out the opponent in four of her last five appearances on the mound.
This weekend could prove grueling for the Lobos (0-2-1) as they head to the Domino's Pizza Aggie Classic at Texas A&M. Over the next three days, UNM will play six games, three against the No. 20 Aggies (7-0), and three against undefeated Arkansas (6-0). How does head coach Rich Alday feel about this early-season epic? "Not good," he said.
by Ketan Dhawan Daily Lobo They're roommates. They're friends. They're teammates. They also just happen to be the best divers UNM has seen in more than a decade. Becca Barras and Tracey Berghian triumphed once again last week, adding a few more trophies to an already packed case.
Finger pointing, frustration and confusion have left the UNM men's basketball season teetering on the edge. Just two weeks ago, the Lobos were alone in fourth place in the conference with a .500 record at 4-4. But after a back-breaking road swing over the past two weeks that saw UNM drop three straight to Air Force, BYU and Utah - the latter two losses by a combined 47 points - the Lobos were left questioning themselves as a team and a contender.
Spencer Levin is proving to be the saving grace for UNM men's golf, leading the team to respectable finishes in the first two tournaments of the semester. The 19-year-old sophomore is quickly making a name for himself at UNM after a series of publicized problems on and off the course led to his decision to transfer this year from UCLA.
In a game that ended as a taut, tense matchup, the Lobos tied the Northwestern Wildcats 3-3 after 11 innings in the finale of this weekend's Ultimate Dugout Baseball Fiesta Tournament. Baseball games aren't supposed to end in a draw, but it was a suitable ending for such a bizarre contest.
Men's Basketball The Lobos (13-10, 4-6) dropped their 24-straight road game Saturday in Provo, Utah against BYU (17-7, 7-4). The Cougars dominated play in the paint en route to an 88-71 Mountain West Conference win. Troy DeVries led the Lobos with 16 points, and Javin Tindall added 12.
Solutions by The State News
