The boys and girls basketball groups for the Northern Rio Grande Tournament were announced on Sunday, and Mesa Vista is at the forefront of both.
The boys with a 7-1 record became number 1 in the group of eight and will play eight seeded Questa at 7pm in the first round of the Edward Medina High School in Española Valley at 7pm. The teams will be seeded based on their overall record on Sunday.
On the girls’ side, the 7-0 Lady Trojans earned the same seed in the other round. You will play Mora in the game at 5.30pm.
The tournament is returning after a year-long hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic and has a new home for its comeback. After 23 years in the Pojoaque Valley, the committee decided to move to Española, home of the 1989-98 tournament.
Pecos, the 2020 youngsters champion, is sixth seeded with a 4-5 record after finishing eighth in the Stu Clark tournament in Las Vegas last week 18 game that the Lobos won convincingly, 76- 47.
The reigning maiden champion Peñasco is # 2 seeded and will play against Dulce # 7.
Speaking of pecos, the NRG tournament is going to be a historic run – just not the kind that it wanted. The Panthers are on a four-game losing streak, their longest since closing the 2013-14 season with an eight-game losing streak.
However, the Panthers were battling a COVID-19 outbreak that affected three starters. It resulted in a December 14 game being postponed against the undefeated Estancia squad and a one-sided loss to Escalante as the team recovered from the outbreak.
The last time Pecos ended a season with a defeat (6:21). Since then, it has put together a 167-37 record with four even state titles from 2016-20.
The New Mexico Highlands men’s basketball team took their first Conference win of the season with a home win over Westminster just before the new year.
The Cowboys were down by 16 at halftime, but took the final game eight seconds before the end when Pecos graduate Mario Archuleta was wide open in the back corner to win the 68:64 at John A. with 3 points to give the green light to Wilson complex.
NMHU were the last team in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference to take a league win. With 6-7 total and 1-6 in the 15-team league, the Cowboys are tied for bottom place with Colorado Christian.
Highlands will play five of their next six games at home, down 4-2 this season.
The UNM has lost one of its soccer assistants to the Pac-12. Drew Mehringer, who served as the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator on Danny Gonzales’s staff, has taken on the position of tight ends coach in Oregon, joining the new head coach, Dan Lanning in Eugene, Ore.
Lanning, 35, will take over the Ducks once he quits as Georgia defensive coordinator.
Several ceremonies are held on Saturday in honor of a deceased basketball player. Santa Fe High will pull off Fedonta “JB” White’s jersey at their home game against Clovis. White, a 6-foot-8 striker who was the school’s top decorated athlete since Toby Roybal, wanted to play basketball at the University of New Mexico before he was shot dead on August 1, 2020.
White’s number will be the first to be withdrawn from school and it will be performed in the gym that goes by Roybal’s name. Roybal was a 1950 Santa Fe High graduate who had an excellent career with the UNM before succumbing to pancreatic cancer in 1962.
Meanwhile, former official David Soveranez is inducted into the Northern Rio Grande Hall of Fame during the boys’ championship game. Soveranez, who was a football and basketball official for 45 years, died on December 21 after being in a coma for 10 days from internal bleeding. Soveranez’s family will be in attendance and a proclamation from the Office of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham in honor of his honor will be read at the ceremony.
More snow will come in about four weeks.
How do we know? Because January 31st is the start date for baseball and softball in high school, a day that marks the start of preseason auditions and exercises. If something regularly means the return of wet and cold weather, it is the start of spring sports.
In other words, shake off the New Year’s weekend cold spell and be prepared for the impact. In four weeks the snow will really start to fall.
And in case you’re wondering, preparations for golf, tennis and athletics will begin the following Monday, February 7th.
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