Things are about to get interesting for Santa Fe High Senior Martell Mora.
He finished his prep football career that fall with 17 touchdowns and 1,230 yards for an 8.4 yards-per-carry average. It led to numerous post-season awards and made him the target of several college recruiters.
He’s been offered 12 opportunities since this weekend, he said. The last was a spot as preferred walk-on in the state of New Mexico. That opportunity came on Friday, the same day he wrestled with the Demons at the Joe Vivian Classic at Albuquerque High.
Mora said he will take a little more time to make his decision, but receiving partial scholarship offers for Eastern New Mexico and Western New Mexico, as well as a place at NMSU to coincide with interest from some other schools, makes that decision difficult to finalize .
Mora is one of several Demons from last season’s six-win team that got a lot of attention from college recruiters. Late last week, Ben White announced he’d received an offer from Western New Mexico.
The recent spike in COVID-19 cases, largely attributed to the Omicron variant, has thrown a shambles on preparation plans, particularly as teams prepare for the district season. The Santa Fe Indian School has postponed its inaugural week of District 2-3A boys’ and girls’ basketball games because it has yet to return to in-person learning.
The games scheduled with Las Vegas Robertson and West Las Vegas were postponed to February as a result.
Los Alamos also suspended track and field activities as the school decided on Wednesday to switch to distance learning through Jan. 24. That means the Districts 2-4A boys’ and girls’ opener games against Moriarty will be postponed.
While Santa Fe Public Schools switched to distance learning last week, it didn’t force the suspension of athletic programs. As of now, Capital and Santa Fe High are playing their District 5-5A opener games against Albuquerque High (Santa Fe High) and Albuquerque Rio Grande (Capital).
Speaking of the Albuquerque Rio Grande, its boys’ and girls’ basketball programs are in the midst of a seasonal road trip as the gym undergoes renovations. When the Lady Ravens play Capital in their district opener, they will do so at home on the streets on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.
Usually boys and girls teams play 5-5A games on the same day, with one team playing at home and the other away at the same opponent’s home court. Since that is not possible for Rio Grande, the teams play on back-to-back days on the opponent’s home pitch.
The boys play Rio Grande Capital on Tuesday while the girls play the following day. When the teams meet again next month, the boys’ game will be played on February 3rd and the girls’ game on February 4th.
One of prep basketball’s more colorful characters is nearing a career milestone. Manny Romero has 398 career victories as head coach after more than a quarter century at Mora, Robertson and Peñasco.
Known for his intense gaze and equally intense attention to detail, buzz-cut coaching icon led Mora to Class 2A state championships in 1998 and 2005. If you ever attended a Rangers game back then, you’ll surely remember Romero for his boot-stomping manner on the sidelines. In crowded gyms with overwhelming fan noise, he could always grab the attention of his players by stomping his boots on the hardwood, a sound that clearly surpassed anything the fans had to offer.
In later years, he’s embraced the sneaker look, an aesthetic that works just as well with its no-nonsense sheen.
Romero is back in Mora for his first season. He coached nine seasons at Robertson, winning 136 games and leading the Cardinals to the Class 3A semifinals last season and 2016 when they were beaten by West Las Vegas in a memorable showdown in Meadow City.
And then there were four more.
After district games begin or are about to begin, only four boys basketball teams remain perfectly in the win-loss column. Two of them are in Class 5A, which makes for some interesting thinking about when the playoffs start tomorrow.
The Santa Fe Highs District 2-5A vs. Albuquerque High opening game is scheduled for Tuesday. The Demons are already making a strong case as a top 4 seed at the time of the State Tournament with a 12-2 aggregate record. A look at the 5A standings reveals a top-heavy group led by unbeaten Las Cruces (17-0) and Volcano Vista (16-0), with strong district favorites in Hobbs (16-2), Farmington (15-1) and the demons (12-2) close behind.
Never forget Atrisco Heritage, La Cueva, Rio Rancho or defending champion Cleveland. Atrisco’s only casualties are Volcano Vista and La Cueva, while La Cueva’s only casualties are Atrisco and Volcano. Hobbs’ only casualties are Las Cruces and Odessa (Texas) Permian.
As fun as the state tournament is, there might not be enough popcorn to get us through a 5A draw that will see Santa Fe High front and middle.
While the Gonzales Community School basked in the glory of winning the Santa Fe Public Schools seventh grade girls basketball tournament, the Milagro Middle School team that beat them struggled with an obstacle before they even entered the championship game.
The team was unable to practice during the winter break, limiting their ability to prepare for their opponent as the other half of the January 4–6 bracket was repeated. The tournament, scheduled to wrap up in mid-December, was repeating games as Turquoise Trail Charter School played with an eighth grader when they originally reached the championship game.
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