Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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On a recent late-night broadcast of ESPN's Sports Center, anchor Neil Everett said, "When it comes to college football coaches, there's Nick Saban and there's everyone else." Muleshoe, Texas might see it a little differently. Not that the folks of Muleshoe don't respect Saban and what he's done for the Alabama Crimson Tide. It's just that they have their own homegrown hero — Oklahoma Sooners head coach Lincoln Riley. For Riley's part, Muleshoe was good to him, providing the s...
As routine as it may seem for the Texico and Melrose volleyball teams to compete for state championships, it’s not at all easy. Texico won its fourth straight 3A crown last year, finishing 21-4. Melrose made its fourth consecutive state-championship appearance and won its second title during that stretch, winding up 19-7. But state titles are a brick-by-brick construction job. The Lady Wolverines aren’t even looking ahead to a possible fifth title run in November yet. “I don’t pay attention to that,” Texico’s 10th-year h...
TEXICO — As high school coaches watch their players step up to the next level, it’s bittersweet. For Texico baseball coach Ty Thatcher, it was mostly the “sweet” part on Thursday afternoon. Thatcher hosted a brief ceremony in the Texico High School Gym lobby, one in which Ben Crist and Nathan Phipps were honored for earning shots at college baseball. Crist signed a letter of intent for Division III Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas. Phipps, meanwhile, made his written commitment to play for a National Associa...
CLOVIS — In a cool evening breeze — early-season football weather already — Clovis High's football team wrapped up two-a-day practices Friday at Leon Williams Stadium. Though just four days removed from Monday's first practice, the Wildcats felt they had come a great distance since the beginning. The routes were sharper, the coaching was sinking in, the plays were making so much more sense. As of Friday, two weeks still remained before they kick it off against Hobbs, but the w...
CLOVIS — The high school games will start soon enough. Before they can, though, Clovis teams will be practicing, gearing up for what they hope are seasons that end with lengthy state playoff runs. Practices begin this week for the Clovis boys and girls soccer, volleyball and cross country teams. And for Clovis boys soccer coach Greg Trujillo, practices can’t start soon enough. He lost 10 seniors from last year’s team and needs to work the current mix of players into a sound...
CLOVIS — Hobbs and the Wildcat balloon tunnel and the trappings of opening night are still two and a half weeks away. Plenty of time for Clovis High's football coaching staff to make the necessary tweaks before that Aug. 24 road opener. Still, Monday's start of practices was exciting in itself. Almost nine months have passed since Clovis' 2017 season wrapped with a state quarterfinal loss at Manzano. The players returning from that 6-6 team and the ones making their debut on t...
The Zia 9 & 11 All-Star baseball team overcame obstacle after obstacle, opponent after opponent, in its state championship quest. Saturday night, though, teams from Carlsbad and Albuquerque Eastdale proved to be peaks Zia couldn’t climb over at the Bob Forrest Complex in Carlsbad. With consecutive semifinal losses Saturday — a 16-3 winner’s bracket loss to Carlsbad followed by a 7-3 loser’s bracket setback against Albuquerque Eastdale — the Zia All-Stars’ historic Final Four run was over. They sure came close, though. “Oh...
CLOVIS — On Thursday it was about practicing, hitting softballs into nets and getting ready for a big weekend. Friday was a travel day, time to make the 3 1/2-hour trek from Clovis to Albuquerque. Today, there's no more preparation, no more build-up for Clovis American's 13-14 Junior League softball team. The newly-minted 2018 state champions are playing Colorado in the regional tournament at the Isleta reservation, with game time slated for noon. If the Clovis American g...
CARLSBAD — The Zia 9 & 11 All-Stars can only hope they play up to the nickname they themselves came up with for the team. Hit City. Beginning tonight, that Clovis boys team is playing Las Vegas Little League in the semifinals of the 9 & 11 New Mexico State Tournament in Carlsbad. A victory sends the Zia All-Stars, via the winner’s bracket, to their next game on Saturday at 6 p.m. A loss and they have to bounce back quickly for a loser’s bracket game on Saturday morning at 8 a.m. “But we don’t look at the loser’s bracket,” Z...
Championship seasons don’t go unnoticed by All-Star voters. And this year was no exception. When the votes were in for the 3A All-State baseball team, seven players from Texico’s 27-2 state championship squad had been selected. Among that seven were four first-teamers, a second-teamer and two honorable mentions. And, icing the cake were the selections of Texico shortstop/pitcher Dalton Thatcher as Player of the Year and the Wolverines’ Ty Thatcher as Coach of the Year. Pretty good haul. “I was impressed with the number...
CLOVIS — Any father will say that his son is uniquely talented. In this case, though, Clovis resident Johnny Jimenez might be on to something. Johnny's son Javier can give radar guns a jolt, throwing in the upper 50- to low 60-mph range, lightning-bolt velocity considering he's only 9. And the USSSA (United States Specialty Sports Association) has taken notice. Early-May tryouts — held at Southwestern locations Albuquerque, Dallas and Tulsa — turned out well for young Javier,...
CLOVIS — The players on last year's Clovis American 13-14 Junior League softball team know well what it means to repeat as New Mexico state champions because they had hands directly in both. The first-year players know what it felt like on Saturday, as they helped bring home the second of back-to-back titles. Together, it was a talented, confident, well-coached group that barreled through this year's state tournament, capping it with Saturday's 16-1 victory over Copper, w...
CLOVIS - Clovis American's 13-14 junior softball team has inched closer still. With this morning's 12-2, five-inning New Mexico State Little League semifinal rout of Copper at the Lady Wildcats Softball Complex, Clovis American earned the right to play this afternoon for a repeat championship. Clovis head coach Jose Lopez expects this afternoon's game to be around 3 p.m. at the Lady Wildcats Complex, with Sunday serving as an 'if' day. Lopez thinks his team may well face...
CLOVIS - Jaye Crockett and Teya Morris have a few things in common. They both graduated from Clovis High School after stellar basketball careers. They each chose Texas colleges at which to continue those careers. And they've both been at Yucca Middle School this week to teach kids ages 6 through 17 either the fundamentals of basketball or ways to improve their already-evolving skills. Tuesday was Day 2 of 3 for Crockett's Jaye Rock Athletics fifth annual basketball camp at...
CLOVIS - In a LeBron-weary world of max contracts, free agent departures and trade demands, there are highly-skilled players who don't get much national attention, but are living pretty cool lives just the same. Jaye Crockett is a perfect example. Texas Tech-schooled - both in the classroom and on the Division I hardwood - but spurned by the 2014 NBA draft, Crockett took his talents across the ocean and has had a nice pro career, bringing him to places that neither LeBron nor...
CLOVIS — Bats that got swinging after a slow start. Feet that motored around the basepaths turning doubles into triples. Opportunistic baserunners capitalizing on errors. Stellar pitching and crisp fielding. All of it resulted in Clovis American’s 13-14 junior league team taking the first step toward defending its New Mexico Junior Softball state title with a 13-0, five-inning victory over Atrisco Valley on Saturday at the Lady Wildcats Softball Complex. That win propels Clo...
Every lasso they’ve swirled, every calf or goat they’ve roped, every bull they’ve managed to stay atop have all been in preparation for moments like this. Eight local teens have qualified for the National High School Finals Rodeo, to be held July 15-21 in Rock Springs, Wyoming. That talented octet will head to the Equality State, each with their own chance at glory. Clovis’ Shad Mayfield (tie-down); Portales’ Bryce Derrer (tie-down); Dora’s Kyler Bell (team roping with Tarren Washburn of Corona), Frank Florez (saddle bro...
TEXICO — A last-second shot to win a state championship doesn’t define Richard Luscombe. Nor do the six championships he won prior to that. Luscombe is a teacher, a family man, so many things that go beyond basketball, beyond the fourth state championship to which he guided the Texico girls team last March and the three Texico boys titles he orchestrated. As a world history and united states history and government teacher, Luscombe has likely affected more young Texico liv...
Clovis High’s football team continues its small steps toward the 2018 season, with more of those steps taken over this past weekend. The Wildcats took part in the New Mexico State University 7-on-7 scrimmages in Las Cruces, and they saw some good things, some that needed tweaking. It’s all part of the deal in June — getting it right, getting better, ironing out the kinks, in preparation for the curtain rising on Aug. 24 at Hobbs. Overall, Clovis went 2-2 in pool play, earning a fourth seed out of 19 teams, before narro...
CLOVIS — Big hair, electric guitars and ... mmmmm, cherry pie. If all that doesn’t make you think of the band Warrant, maybe you just don’t know rock ’n’ roll. The group perhaps best remembered for its 1990 hit “Cherry Pie,” which followed up late ’80s smashes “Down Boys,” “Sometimes She Cries” and “Heaven,” is still rocking away a few decades and five or six presidents later, and is set to perform Friday at Clovis’ Draggin’ Main Music Festival. Warrant will be playing at Clovis Community College’s Marshall Auditorium....
CLOVIS — What started small has turned into a colossus. The 35th annual Plateau Custom Classic softball tournament begins tonight with 96 teams registered, a huge turnout even though it’s actually down from last year’s 109. But still flirting around the 100 mark is way more than anyone expected when the tournament began in the early 1980s. Roger Jackson remembers those days. “We were doing it to kind of have a fundraiser for the team,” Jackson recalled. “My memory doesn’t go t...
PORTALES — What football players do in the spring and summer is almost as important as what they do in the fall. Preparation is, after all, a big part of the game. Succeeding in the warm-weather months can lead to success during the regular season. So, the Clovis High football program could take some guarded optimism out of Friday's 7-on-7 scrimmages held at Eastern New Mexico University's Greyhound Stadium. Clovis' varsity went 2-3 in full play — the Wildcats beat Car...
CLOVIS - Up over a ramp, down Sycamore Street, to 14th street they go. Where they'll stop? They hope in Akron, Ohio. Saturday, the 17th annual Clovis Soap Box Derby takes place from 9 a.m. to around 2:30 p.m., with the champion getting a sponsored trip to Akron's Derby Downs Track for the 81st All-American Soap Box Derby World Championships on July 21. The city best known as home to major tire companies and LeBron James is descended upon by over 500 racers from across the...
Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of stories about local athletes who played in multiple North-South All-Star games Playing in state tournaments is nice. Winning them even nicer. Portales’ Zamorye Cox did both over the past seven months — competing in the state volleyball tournament in November and helping the basketball team win the 4A state title in March. Her contributions were well known at Portales, but were not lost on state all-star selection committees, either. Cox was chosen to represent the Lady Rams...
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories about local athletes who participated in multiple North-South All-Star Games last week. If you’ve ever seen Nathan Phipps scrapping for rebounds in gyms across eastern New Mexico or belting no-doubt homers everywhere from bucolic Texico Field to professional Isotopes Park in Albuquerque, you probably understand. You’d know why Nathan Phipps — who graduated last month from Texico High School after helping the Wolverines capture three consecutive state baseball titles...
