ENMU sports year in review

PORTALES — The 2017 calendar year proved to be a year of ascension for the Eastern New Mexico athletics program. The women’s basketball team won their first league title in nearly a quarter century, while the Greyhounds football team cracked the top 25 rankings for the first time since 2003.

The 2016-17 Greyhounds women’s basketball squad (20-9) won the LSC regular season title, giving the Hounds their first league championship since 1992-93. Eastern went 16-4 in league play, and qualified for the NCAA Division II tournament for the first time in school history, where it fell to Colorado-Colorado Springs, 89-73.

Fourth year coach Josh Prock’s team featured a trio of All-LSC performers in Mikaehla Connor, Kassandra Harris and Daeshi McCants. Overall, the Hounds averaged 71.4 points and 43.0 rebounds per game.

Kelley Lee’s football team, meanwhile, became the first Greyhound squad since 2003 to crack the NCAA’s Division II football poll, as they got as high as No. 20 in the country. Eastern (8-2) racked up six straight wins during the season and played for a share of the LSC title in the season finale against Midwestern State.

ENMU once again dominated Division II in time of possession (36:41), as the Greyhounds’ potent rushing attack totaled more than 3,500 yards (352.7 per game) and scored 35 touchdowns.

In fact, senior running back Kamal Cass broke the school’s rushing record, which had stood for more than 40 years. Kass was once again named a First Team All-American, after rushing for 1,448 yards and 14 touchdowns. The Clovis-native finished his illustrious Greyhound career with 4,301 rushing yards and 50 rushing touchdowns.

Eastern also experienced success in cross country this past fall, as Omer Almog and Coley Norcross proved to be amongst the better runners in the entire country. Almog led the men’s team to finishes of sixth (Texas Tech Open), second (New Mexico Highlands), third (New Mexico Junior College), second (West Texas A & M) and seventh (LSC Championships), as he also qualified for the NCAA Division II cross country championships, in which the native-Israeli finished 95th.

Norcross, meanwhile, helped the women’s team to similar success in those respective events, where they finished sixth, second, second, second and seventh. Eastern ultimately finished off the 2017 campaign with an 18th place men’s finish at the NCAA Division II South Central Region Championships, while the women placed 22nd.

Beyond those accomplishments, the track and field team placed fifth in both the men’s and women’s events at the LSC Indoor Track Championships last January, while the rodeo team has placed in the top 10 in every event entered in the fall of 2017. The women’s team has finishes of fourth (ENMU College “Daze”), sixth (Vernon College), eighth (Frank Phillips College) and fourth (Texas Tech), while the men’s placed ninth at College “Daze” and fifth at Vernon.