Scores Capsules Columns Eric Butler Ken Sickenger

Ruidoso, Bernalillo Head Field
Ruidoso and Bernalillo might be 230 miles apart. But in the Class AAA Journal Coaches' Poll in boys basketball, the distance is considerably shorter. (December 8)

Leon, La Cueva Eliminate Clovis
The La Cueva boys basketball team wasted little time ensuring a new champion will be crowned at this season's Albuquerque Academy Invitational. (December 8)

New State Champion Is Expected
There are no more dynasties in Class AA. (December 7)

Tournament Sites Not Determined
The forecast is partly cloudy. (December 7)

Dotson Plays Down Del Norte's Chances
Despite Del Norte winning its first state wrestling title last season, coach Charlie Dotson is reluctant to discuss his 2000-01 Knights. (December 7)

Hoops Teams Get Into Tournament Spirit
If you're a fan of high school basketball, and tournament brackets provide some sort of fix for March Madness, today is a great day. (December 7)

Knights Get Defensive, Get Victory
Del Norte's strong defensive performance in the second half Tuesday night at Albuquerque Academy powered the Knights to their fourth victory of the season in girls high school basketball. (December 6)

Newcomers are Poised to Make Noise
Cliff, Melrose, Floyd, Grady, Roy ... Temple Baptist? (December 6)

Carlsbad 'Dawg-Pounded
LAS CRUCES — Isaac Gomez won the battle, and Las Cruces won the war. (December 3)

Coyotes' Rally Shocks Panthers
FARMINGTON — The new kids on the block were about to show just how easy it is to win a state championship. But the Roswell Coyotes still had a little something to say about that Saturday. (December 3)

Explosive Offense, Dominating Defense Equal a Lovington Crown
LOVINGTON — It makes sense that a school that sent linebacker Brian Urlacher to the NFL's Chicago Bears would be rightfully proud of its defense. (December 3)

Full House Expected for Class AAAAA Showdown
New Mexico's highways will be jammed with football traffic today. (December 2)

Manzano Gets Past Santa Fe
The last time the Santa Fe High girls basketball team played in the Albuquerque Public Schools invitational four years ago, the Demonettes won the title. (December 2)

Bears, Cougars Survive
Only two of four basketball teams playing in the APS Girls Invitational will be APS schools tonight as the two divisions of eight teams each worked down to a final four. (December 2)

Portales Is Pursuing Favorite Color: Blue
Portales High School girls basketball coach Brenda Gomez has a simple mantra for the 2000-2001 season. (December 1)

The Cavemen Cometh Back
CARLSBAD — A potash miner for three decades, Freddie Prewitt might be Carlsbad High School's No. 1 football fan. His shock of gray hair spills from a blue-and-white ballcap that says "Caveman Football — I love it!" (December 1)

Oñate Drops Academy at Gallup Tournament
GALLUP — The youthful Albuquerque Academy Chargers found life a bit too fast Thursday afternoon in first-round action of the Gallup Invitational girls basketball tournament. (December 1)

Champion Texico Returns Key Players
A lot of coaches would love to be in Roy King's well-worn gym shoes. (November 30)

APS Event Returns to a 16-Team Format
Some new invitees add spice to this week's expanded version of the Albuquerque Public Schools Invitational Basketball Tournament, but it remains to be seen if any can leave the city with a championship trophy. (November 30)

Abreú Is Now With Ravens
The Rio Grande Ravens will have to issue a new practice uniform today. (November 29)

Some Schools Looking Ahead to March
The season barely might be under way for Class A girls basketball teams in New Mexico, and many of the coaches might only be vaguely familiar with fellow district members — much less the rest of the state. (November 29)

Sports Travel Faulted by Northern Coaches
SANTA FE — Questa High School Athletic Director Paul Passino cringes when he thinks of sending one of his teams to play Cimarron and Clayton high schools — not from a competition standpoint, mind you, but from a travel standpoint. (November 28)

Freshmen Lead SIPI to National Championship
Even in August, those on the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute campus could see that the school's men's cross-country program showed all the symptoms of being extraordinary. (November 27)

Quick-Strike Wildcats in a Romp
SANTA FE — Caden Jameson threw three touchdown passes, and Rusty Hargrove ran for a pair of scores and caught another as top-ranked Lovington (10-3) hammered third-ranked St. Michael's 39-10 on Saturday in a Class AAA semifinal football playoff game. (November 26)

Piedra Vista Plows to a Win
LOS ALAMOS — After a foot of snow was pushed off the field in preparation for the Class AAAA football semifinal on Saturday, the resulting condition of the turf was predictable. (November 26)

Las Cruces Is Tough on Turf, Vikes
Isaac Gomez didn't enjoy peeling adhesive tape off his bloody elbows after Saturday's Class AAAAA semifinal football game at Milne Stadium. Otherwise, the Las Cruces High School running back fully enjoyed his first experience on Milne's artificial surface. (November 26)

Moore's 3 TDs Spark Roswell Win
ROSWELL — Jack Cisco, football coach at Roswell High School, officially qualified as a hard man to please Saturday afternoon. (November 26)

Championship Dreams Cave in on Hornets
The Carlsbad High School football team celebrated the end of a frustrating 38-year streak Friday night, earning a trip to next week's Class AAAAA championship game with a 31-21 semifinal win over visiting Highland. (November 25)

'Smashmouth' in Style for AAAAA Final Four
Two old-time football power plays will be enacted in this week's Class AAAAA playoffs — one on artificial turf, the other on dormant grass and mud. (November 24)

Marron Lifts La Cueva Girls to a Win
Stacey Marron scored six of her team-high 19 points in the final three minutes to help the La Cueva girls basketball team come from behind to edge visiting Cibola 60-55 on Tuesday night. (November 22)

Top-Ranked Hornets Sting Trojans
Unlike the movies, Rambo didn't do all the destruction by his lonesome. He did, however, inflict enough damage to help top-ranked Highland avoid a disaster Saturday afternoon at Wilson Stadium. (November 19)

CLASS AAA: Lovington, St. Mike's Win Decisively
SANTA FE — Leon Archuleta rushed for a pair of scores and James Merrill intercepted two passes to lead third-ranked St. Michael's to a 25-6 victory over visiting Socorro in the Class AAA quarterfinals. (November 19)

CLASS AAAA: Los Alamos Holds off Silver to Advance
SILVER CITY — The Los Alamos Hilltoppers forced five turnovers and held off the Silver Colts for a 9-7 victory Saturday in a Class AAAA quarterfinal playoff football game. (November 19)

Class A: Hagerman Veers to a Perfect Season
FORT SUMNER — Hagerman didn't exactly pull out all the stops in the second half of its Class A football title game Saturday against Fort Sumner. (November 19)

Class AAAAA: Carlsbad's Drought Ends
CARLSBAD — Travis Gates was a month old the last time Carlsbad High School won a football playoff game. On Saturday, he primarily was the reason that 18-year drought ended. (November 19)

Hornets, Trojans Head Super Saturday Lineup
For New Mexico high school football fans, today is Super Saturday. Teams from Albuquerque and all four corners of the state will put their seasons on the line. Fourteen games are scheduled, all of them with do-or-die consequences. (November 18)

Changes Mark New Prep Swimming Season
With a flood of coaching changes and the graduation of several champions, the high school swimming season gets under way today on the annual voyage for gold. (November 18)

Hornets' Walters Rediscovers Football
Mark Walters' first love is basketball, he unabashedly confesses. Judge Chavez has been around long enough to know that first loves are special, but not always the greatest or most enduring. (November 16)

Tohatchi Player Ineligible
Tohatchi High School has reported that an academically ineligible athlete played on its football team in the Nov. 10 game against Thoreau, the New Mexico Activities Association said Tuesday. (November 14)

Animas Takes Title in 5 Games
With the help of playing the fifth and deciding game on the lucky side, the Animas Panthers won the Class A title at the state high school volleyball tournament at West Mesa on Saturday. (November 12)

Rebuilt Goddard Pulls Off a 2-Peat
Up until Saturday, Goddard volleyball wasn't known as one those reload-type of programs in which a team smoothly replaces the parts of a championship squad broken to pieces. (November 12)

Bjork Gets Kicks for Manzano
The only thing certain in District 4AAAAA heading into this weekend's high school football games was that Clovis would clinch a playoff berth if the Wildcats won at Manzano on Saturday. (November 12)

Vixens Win 5-Game War With Determined Bobcats
What started as a walk in the park turned into a war for the Fort Sumner volleyball team Saturday at West Mesa. (November 12)

Floyd Topples Ramah 81-70 for 6-Man Crown
RAMAH — For Floyd to win the high school state six-man football championship this season, it helped to have the right mixture of religion, Denzel Washington and 81 points. (November 12)

Las Cruces Electrifies Sandia to Earn Crown
Saturday night's Class AAAAA state volleyball tournament championship match was all about power, and Las Cruces put on an electrifying display. (November 12)

Portales Too Strong for West Las Vegas
With a thunderous spike that landed between a pair of West Las Vegas defenders, Laci Lee and the top-ranked Portales Rams finished off the No. 3-ranked Dons and claimed the Class AAA title Saturday in the high school state volleyball tournament 15-8, 15-10, 10-15, 15-8. (November 12)

La Cueva Clinches Playoff Spot
The high school football year might not have started off as La Cueva would have scripted it, but the regular season ended Friday night at Wilson Stadium with the Bears back in the big dance. (November 11)

Sandia, Las Cruces Collide
Sandia, the new kid on the Class AAAAA volleyball block, will have to go through neighborhood bully Las Cruces if it hopes to win its first state title in 27 years. (November 11)

Quarterfinals Over Quickly
The winners made short work of the losers in Thursday's Class A quarterfinals at the high school volleyball state tournament. (November 10)

Opposites to Meet in Volleyball
Traditional powers vs. exuberant newcomers: Such are the pairings for Friday's Class AAAAA state volleyball tournament semifinals at West Mesa High School. (November 9)

Temple Baptist's Path to State Has Cleared
When the Class A and Class AA state volleyball championships kick off today at West Mesa, most of the usual regulars will be on hand for the show. (November 9)

Sandia Turns Tears of Sadness to Tears of Joy
The Sandia High School girls soccer team delivered on a year-old promise Saturday, and ended up with a state championship to show for it. (November 5)

Chargers, St. Pius Tie Again
New year, same result. Bitter boys soccer rivals Albuquerque Academy and St. Pius played 100 minutes Saturday and decided nothing at the New Mexico Soccer Championship Complex, leaving the teams walking off the field as Class AAAA co-state champions with a 0-0 tie. (November 5)

Eldorado Closes the Deal
After Eldorado's boys soccer team beat nationally top-ranked Sandia in Friday's AAAAA semifinal, many Eagle fans chanted "Now we're No. 1!" (November 5)

Manzano Tops Clovis
The only thing certain in District 4AAAAA heading into this weekend's high school football games was that if Clovis won at Manzano on Saturday, the Wildcats would clinch a playoff berth. That, however, didn't happen. (November 5)

Prep Football Roundup
Earl Phelps kicked a 27-yard field goal to give Carlsbad a 10-7 overtime win over Eldorado, keeping the Cavemen in the hunt for a playoff berth in Class AAAAA football. (November 5)

For Chargers, Turnabout Is Excellent Play
After coming so close over the past 20 years, Albuquerque Academy's girls soccer program finally can lay claim to a state championship. (November 5)

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ERIC BUTLER'S COLUMNS Valley, Carlsbad Rise To Top The last pieces to the New Mexico high school football playoff puzzle were put in place Thursday and Friday when Valley and Carlsbad scored big wins over, respectively, Rio Rancho and Hobbs. (November 14)

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