Sep. 3—Welcome to Peerman’s Power Rankings (PPR), the 10 athletes, teams and story lines that have Journal sports editor Lucas Peerman’s attention. Have a suggestion, complaint or compliment? Email [email protected] or find me on X, @LucasPeerman.
PPR will be weekly during the fall, winter and spring sports seasons, but expect a few changes starting next week. Moving forward, PPR will be a ranking the five athletes, teams and story lines that have the Journal’s attention, and the honorable mention section will expand and/or compact to include any other tidbits worth mentioning.
10. Amy Griffin
It may be odd to start a power rankings list with the coach of a team that lost 7-0 in its one appearance in New Mexico in August, but PPR is not only about what the scoreboard shows. Griffin is coach of the US Women’s Deaf National Team, and on Aug. 2 she was back in her old stomping grounds for an exhibition against the UNM women’s soccer team. Griffin, née Allman, was the first-ever coach of the Lobos, hired in 1992 to start the program. Since 2015, she’s been coach of the women’s deaf national team, which has never lost a match in international play. The day after the exhibition, Griffin and her team were host to a kids soccer clinic at UNM. “It’s the one thing (players) absolutely love to do because they were that deaf or hard- of-hearing kid once that didn’t have a camp,” Griffin told the Journal. Generating interest in soccer is Griffin’s M.O., and that’s worth celebrating.
9. Wyatt Provence
A transfer from West Texas A&M, Provence will be on the UNM men’s golf team this season. Shortly after arriving in the Duke City this summer, he heard about the Albuquerque City Championship, a three-day tournament over three different courses happening Aug. 9-11, and thought he’d enter to get to know the lay of the land. Provence, the guy who had hardly played any courses in Albuquerque, won the tournament, shooting 13-under par, three shots better than second place. The Lobos host the William H. Tucker Golf Invitational on Sept. 20 and since Provence will have had about six weeks to get know the course by then, PPR expects nothing less than a double-digit victory.
8. NMSU women’s soccer
The NM State soccer team’s August couldn’t have gone much better as the Aggies were undefeated in five matches (4-0-1). The Aggies began their 2024 campaign with four home matches, which included a 2-2 tie against No. 23 USC, a 3-1 victory over rival UNM and a 2-1 win over Oregon, the team’s first triumph over a Power 4 program. NM State did lose its first match in September, dropping a 2-0 contest at Washington on Sunday. It was the Aggies’ first regular-season loss since USC beat them on Sept. 14, 2023 (though the Aggies did lose to Liberty in the Conference USA title match last season). Coach Rob Baarts’ team has improved each of the past three seasons, and expectations this year include beating the Flames for that CUSA title.
7. Josh Kerr
Former UNM middle distance star Josh Kerr brought home the silver in the men’s 1,500 meters at the Paris Olympics, adding to the bronze medal he earned at the Tokyo Olympics. The race in Paris was one of the most anticipated events of the 2024 Olympics, pitting Kerr against Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who won the gold in Tokyo. And the Aug. 6 race lived up to the hype. Ingebrigtsen set a blistering pace with Kerr taking the lead from the outside with about 100 meters to go. But it was American Cole Hocker — a 30-1 long shot — who sneaked ahead of Kerr from the inside to win the gold in record time. Kerr was the only one of 15 Olympic athletes with New Mexico ties to win a medal.
6. New Mexico Junior College sprinters
How many colleges have athletes who competed in both the Paris Olympics and the Paris Paralympics? Not sure, but NMJC is one of the schools on that list. Tapiwanashe (Carlie) Makarawu, representing Zimbabwe, finished sixth in the men’s 200-meter race in the Olympics on Aug. 6. Only five men in the world are faster than the former Thunderbirds star? Impressive! The 23-year-old Makarawu wrapped up his junior college career in 2024 having won seven individual national championships — including the 100-meter and 200-meter NJCAA titles this year. While Makarawu didn’t win a medal, his Thunderbirds teammate Aymane El Haddaoui did, and may have another before the Paralympics is over. El Haddaoui, representing Morocco, won bronze in the men’s 100 meters on Aug. 30, running under the T-47 classification that deals with upper limbs disabilities. El Haddaoui, a two-time NJCAA All-American in his freshman year last season at NMJC, will also be competing the 400 meters at the Paralympics. The qualifying rounds are Friday and the final is Saturday for that race.
5. La Cueva football
In 2023, La Cueva started 0-3 before going on a win streak that culminated in a 6A state title. The Bears, two games into 2024, are still winning, including a wacky 39-32 double overtime victory over Pinnacle (a high school out of Phoenix) in Flagstaff on Aug. 31. In the first football game featuring an Albuquerque Public Schools team held out of state in 52 years, it was the Arizona squad that struck first. The Pioneers extended their lead by scoring a touchdown with 2:07 left in the game to go up 25-10. But two quick strikes — and an onside kick recovery in between — from the Bears sent this game into extra time. In the second OT, the Bears scored and the Pioneers didn’t, and the Land of Enchantment reigned. Will La Cueva lose a game this season?
4. Devon Dampier, The Prestige
Who would’ve thought Lobo fans would be this encouraged in the midst of an 0-2 start, one that includes blowing a 17-point fourth-quarter lead to an FCS team at home and giving up a record amount of receiving yards in a 22-point loss in the other game? Despite the final ledgers, there was much for Lobo fans to enjoy in an 35-31 home loss to Montana State in Week 0 and Saturday’s 61-39 defeat at No. 21 Arizona. Namely, Devon Dampier. The sophomore quarterback has accounted for seven touchdowns (passing and rushing) so far — and on two of those scores pulled off a little bit of Mahomesian magic. Dampier ambled into the end zone with nary a Bobcat in range after executing a naked bootleg to perfection in the first game; in the second game, after scoring on a keeper in which he eluded a Wildcat defender by faking a throw to a running back, the national Barstool Sports social media account said Dampier “took that man’s soul with the fake pitch.”
Dampier needs a nickname. How about The Prestige? Christopher Priest, author of “The Prestige,” (the book upon which the 2006 movie starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman is based), describes the act of creating an illusion: “The first stage is the ‘setup’ where the magician introduces the seemingly ordinary object, the second stage is ‘turn’ where the object performs an extraordinary action, and the final stage is the ‘prestige’ which is the actual effect or the seemingly impossible outcome of the trick, like a rabbit appearing from a hat.” Dampier is the prestige of UNM’s offense. As he goes, so does the team. And, things have been going pretty well — offensively, at least.
3. Love and baseball
MLB’s Home Run Derby X came to Isotopes Park on Aug. 23 and lived up to its name — it was a home run production. PPR isn’t aware of a single person who didn’t have an absolute blast at HRDX. It’s MLB TLDR (if you don’t get the reference, ask your grandkids), a fast-paced, three-on-three hitting spectacle featuring both men and women. The MLB.com headline out of Albuquerque: “Local love story steals show at HRDX,” referring to Jared Mang and Andrea Howard, a power (hitting) couple who played for UNM baseball and softball, respectively. Howard’s UNM Lobos team beat Mang’s Green Chile Cheeseburgers team in the HRDX championship, but Mang won the MVP as the night’s top hitter. “At home, I’ll probably never hear the end of it,” Mang said. About 12,000 attended HRDX, which means at least 12,000 will be begging MLB to bring the show back next year.
2. Corley sisters
The U.S. Open women’s doubles draw includes 64 teams, and this year, one of those teams was Ivana and Carmen Corley, sisters from Albuquerque. Ivana, 24, and Carmen, 22, are former Eldorado standouts who won state titles. They recently graduated from the University of Oklahoma and in their first year as professionals, earned a wild card invite to the U.S. Open. The Corleys were triumphant in their first match at Flushing Meadows, on Aug. 29, easily dispatching the unseeded Russian duo of Ekaterina Alexandrova and Anna Blinkova, 6-1, 6-3. The sisters advanced to face the 10 seed in the tournament — Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Hao-Ching Chan of Chinese Taipei — on Aug. 30. It was a grueling match, with Kudermetova and Chan squeaking by, 7-6 (7), 6-7 (4), 6-4. Ultimately, the Corley sisters proved they belong at the elite level and New Mexico is proud to root for such exceptional athletes.
1. Leo’s left hook
ESPN rolled into town Aug. 10 to broadcast a Top Rank card headlined by Luis Alberto “Venado” Lopez and Angelo Leo battling for the IBF featherweight title. Lopez, the champ, was the heavy favorite even though the fight was in Leo’s hometown of Albuquerque. In the 10th round, as Journal combat sports reporter Rick Wright described it: “Leo did what he’s been training to do since he was in grade school, launching a left hook that, really, was more precise than powerful. Speed is power, they say in boxing. Lopez never saw it coming.” The knockout’s shock waves traveled farther than anyone expected. “Knockout of the year!” hundreds claimed on social media. “A scintillating 10th-round KO from Angelo Leo stole the combat sports show this weekend,” Forbes wrote. Best Boxing Knockouts of 2024 has Leo’s left hook ranked No. 1 in a video posted recently on YouTube. Later that night, Lopez was treated for a brain bleed at an Albuquerque hospital while Leo and his manager were ostensibly listening to, rather than making, offers on a next bout. Angelo Leo, please stand up. You are Albuquerque’s next great hope in the ring.
Honorable mention
Diego Pavia: Have you ever seen a chip larger than the one on Pavia’s shoulder pads? The Albuquerque native’s latest act of proving doubters wrong came Aug. 31 in Nashville, Tenn., where the quarterback led perennial doormat Vanderbilt over Virginia Tech, which came into the game as a two-touchdown favorite.
Tony Sanchez: The new head coach for New Mexico State football has done something the venerable Jerry Kill never did in his two years in Las Cruces: Start 1-0. But to fit Kill’s shoes completely — which means an invite to a bowl game — Sanchez will need his Aggies to perform a lot better than they did in squeaking by FCS Southeast Missouri State, 23-16.
New Mexico United: The Black and Yellow went 3-2-1 in August and maintained their lead atop the USL Western Conference, but the organization’s biggest win of the month came outside the pitch when the Albuquerque City Council on Aug. 19 denied an appeal, allowing the United soccer stadium at Balloon Fiesta park to move forward.
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Publish date : 2024-09-03 13:00:00
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