Kurt Johnson, General Manager and Executive Editor of the Las Cruces Bulletin, highlights local sports stories each week.
Scott Brocato:
So let's start with NMSU football. This is a bye week. They'll be playing again next week. Talk about that, what that matchup will be.
Kurt Johnson:
So NMSU's football team is kind of an interesting situation right now. They've got some transfers, some new guys in town that they were really counting on. One of them is James Jones. who's a running back who's actually delivering quite well. He's one of the best runners around. But he's a transfer from Delaware State. This is his fourth stop in his college five-year career. So he's an interesting story.
But the biggest problem they've got right now, their defense has played pretty well, but they've got some problems at quarterback. They've been rotating back and forth between Trey Hedden, who's a transfer, and Adam Demonte, who's been here, and he was the starter up until last week. They went back to Hedden. while they were playing for international and they just were having a hard time scoring points. The defense does okay.
Coming up next, they have Sam Houston, who's a team that's 1-4. So right now at this point, New Mexico State is 1-1 in the conference, but 2-4 overall. But they've got Sam Houston. They'll be at Sam Houston. It's Wednesday. So they've got three consecutive Wednesday games. This is the second of those three. They have one bye in between.
So they'll play a Wednesday game against Sam Houston on the road. Sam Houston's 1-4. It's been a tough season for them. This is kind of a chance for us to find out a little bit more about where New Mexico State lands in that conference. Are they a middle-of-the-road team or are they a little bit lower than we thought? We kind of thought they'd be a little bit better, but at least they feel like they might be in the middle of the pack. Sam Houston's going to give us a good test.
Scott Brocato:
Well, let's move on to high school. Highlight some high school sports.
Kurt Johnson:
So what's interesting in high school football...let's just start with football, and then I want to talk a little bit about the Organ Mountain girls' soccer team, which is really doing well. But in high school football, Las Cruces was a state finalist last year and they came in really strong and they've actually been okay. They've replaced a lot of players. They are still sitting ranked #4 in the state with 6-1 record. That one loss was a weird one. It was a lightning- shortened game. and they were having a chance to score a go-ahead touchdown and they never were able to resume. So it was an interesting loss.
Centennial was supposed to be the better team this year, I think, because of more experience coming back. But unfortunately, they had a really rough start. They got absolutely pounded up in Albuquerque in their opener. But they have come back strong. They just won a couple of big games. They beat Organ Mountain up pretty good. And so now we're kind of looking actually probably past the next few weeks. October 30th, the last game of the regular season, might be setting up as a district championship game between Las Cruces and Centennial. So that's kind of the story in high school football.
But the real story right now in local high school sports is probably the Organ Mountain girls’ soccer team, which in their season so far, they're 14 wins and one tie. The tie was against La Cueva from Albuquerque. And interestingly enough, even with that record and having scored 88 goals and given up only three to this point in the season, they're still only ranked 5th in the state.
So MaxPreps doesn't seem to be giving Oregon Mountain a whole lot of credit, but they actually have three young ladies on that team that are sophomores who play in what they call the WPSL. It's the Western Premier or the Women's Premier Soccer League. And they play with college players. This is during the off season, during the summer. So these are sophomores in high school that have been schooled by playing against some college players. And they come together with Ariyah Vasquez, who is the defending state player of the year, who's a senior. And that group has become very, very talented. And they're looking like they're on a path to possibly reach the state championship.
If you're talking about Las Cruces local, their other close game was actually against Mayfield just this past week. They only beat Mayfield--and I say “only” because they've been beating teams by double digits; in soccer, that's weird--so they only beat Mayfield 2 to 1. Mayfield's got a senior-heavy team that has high expectations and is doing well as well.
But the Oregon Mountain Girls soccer team, I think if I'm a local soccer fan, I want to check out that team. That is a talented group of girls that are very well-coached and play really well together. So that's the latest in high school sports around here.
Scott Brocato:
All right, lots going on. And where can folks read about that?
Kurt Johnson:
So pick up a copy of the Las Cruces Bulletin. It's all over town. It's free, still free. And if you want to subscribe, you're welcome to contact us as well. We can get you a copy at your house. We do still deliver a little bit around town. We move those copies around a little bit. So that's always an option.
We also are introducing right now, coming up in the next few weeks, bringing back our high school athlete of the week voting. So watch for that. You'll have an opportunity to vote for your favorite athletes and let us know who you think are the best athletes in the city.
Scott Brocato:
Sounds good. Kurt Johnson, General Manager, Executive Editor, and sports guy with the Las Cruces Bulletin. Thanks for joining us.
Kurt Johnson:
Oh, you're welcome. I appreciate having the opportunity.