11-6-18
Aggie
Basketball started their season tonight with a Women and Men’s double header. I’m not
sure how that worked with the tickets.
There didn’t seem like enough time to clear the Pan-Am between games, not to mention, there’s surely plenty of
overlap with fans. Did you have to buy a
Men’s ticket and you got the Women’s game free if you wanted it? How would this have worked with my Aggie
Country Pass? I decided not to take the
night off because I wasn’t sure.
The ladies were up first. Unfortunately, there was no coverage of the
game except for Statcast. They were
playing Texas-Permian Basin and made
quick work of them, 70-38. Since I didn’t see or hear the game, I can
only relate a few stats. Brooke Salas led with 22 points. There was a very nice Las Cruces Sun-News article about her at practice and developing her
leadership skills. That’s the only thing
she’s ever been missing from her game.
Gia
Pack
looked good with 17 points. Aaliyah Prince had 9. I’m thinking she’ll have an increased role
this year, perhaps even a breakout year.
Newcomer Rodrea Echols had
9. I know nothing about her, not even
how to pronounce her first name. Both Mills sisters played, but only Dominique scored with 4 points.
The Men played North
Dakota State and won 73-56. The big news, at least for me, was that the
game was streamed live on Twitch. Yes, really.
The 300-some-odd other people watching seemed a bit incredulous too. Since it was Twitch, there was a chat room
and fans of both teams piped up in there.
One fan of the Bison said he’d been here to Las Cruces and loved the
Mexican food. Another said that their
FCS football team would total our football team. Hmm.
No comment.
This was the team’s first game in front of an audience
and a bunch of bench players got into the game, so the team looked a bit shaky
at times. AJ Harris was the only starter returning from last year. High-scorer of the night was newcomer Jojo Zamora at 16. Another new face, Terrell Brown, was second at 13.
The crowd was a bit light. There
looked like a decent student section. After
the game, the camera focused on lovely volleyball
girls, Tatyana Battle and Megan Hart, who were there for the team.
11-8-18
Aggie
Volleyball travelled to Phoenix to face the GCU Lopes tonight. AD Mario Moccia made the trip with them
for some reason and tweeted out updates from the court. I was able to watch on the WAC Digital Network, but not all of it,
owing to work obligations. This match
started early Arizona time. If I’m
picking out the student section at the arena correctly, they had good
representation there. Brigette Lowe started for the
Aggies. I didn’t see Cat Kelly on the Aggie bench, so she
must be injured pretty bad.
Set 1 went to the Aggies 25-20. The GCU announcers
were a lively pair and were very impressed the visitors. There were a couple of interesting plays in
the set. Kiley Tonge came in to serve for Savannah Davison. The
announcers were flummoxed by this strategy, as Sav is a starter and otherwise
always on court. I don’t really
understand it either. Point 20-15, GCU
won the point, but the Aggies made a tremendous effort in keeping the point
going, even saving a ball off the net.
Brig had 3 kills for the set and 1.00 hitting percentage. Julianna
Salanoa and Ashley Anselmo each
had 4.
There were a couple of interesting spots I saw during the
breaks. GCU has a golf resort on campus
that is staffed by the students. It
looks very nice. (I wonder if Mario got
in a round while he was there.) For the
volleyball team, there was a segment where the girls tried to identify a
teammate from a picture when she was a little girl. They mostly failed to the irritation of the
girl in question.
I missed Set 2 entirely, but the Aggies won that one 25-21.
Set 3 I got to watch a bit of.
The Aggies trailed for much of the set.
They tied it at 24 and fought off a couple of set points, but lost 27-25.
The Aggies looked back to form in Set 4 and won 25-20 and 3-1. It was Senior Day for the Lopes. They came out on court in a line and smiled
and waved to the crowd afterward.
“Megan Hart
is a huge force in the game,” exclaimed one of the GCU announcers. He forgot to add, “Beautiful,” as I always
do. She was huge with 14 kills and 6
blocks to lead the team in both categories.
Jules came up with 13 kills and 5 blocks. She’s definitely coming along well. [Edit: Very well. She set an Aggie record with a .722 hitting
percentage with 13 kills in 18 attempts.]
Sav looked back on track with 13 kills, 7 digs, and 2 blocks. Captain Tatyana
Battle had 11 kills and led the team in digs with 12. Overall, the team cut down on errors, which
certainly helped tonight. Brig and Ash
were a bit quiet after that first set outburst, but the team is going to need
them more in the future.
As long as I had the WAC page up, I decided to check in
on a couple of other conference opponents.
I came in on Cal-Baptist
playing at UTRGV just as they
started the fifth set. CBU led early,
but the Vaqueros came back and took it and won the match. Frankly, both teams looked excellent on
court. I also watched the end of UMKC beating Utah Valley in four sets.
The Roo girls also came out on court to wave to their fans.
What have we learned here? Utah Valley beat the Aggies last week, but
the Roo’s beat them tonight, but the Aggies beat the Roos in straight sets
earlier in the season. CBU beat the
Aggies earlier, but a so-so Lopes team beat CBU in straight sets their last
game. (I had to look that one up, but
that is correct.) The Aggies have beaten
UTRGV once on the road, but lost at home to them. The Vaqueros are close to clinching the
regular season. So, we’ve got a very
competitive conference here that is going to be hard to call ahead of time going
into the tournament. UTRGV looks
dominate right now, but I wouldn’t count out four other teams in any single
match with them.
11-9-18
Tonight was a Friday rivalry matchup between the Aggies and Miners in Men’s Basketball. The lower bowl was full at the Pan-Am and the Aggies were wearing throwback
uniforms. Both teams have played a game
this season, but they’re both still trying to find out who they are. The Miners have a new coach and a mostly new
team. Some of their guys have funky
names for a radio broadcast, which was what I was listening to. The Aggies have Coach Jans for his second year, but most of his team is new as
well.
The Miners came out firing early in the first half, shooting
three’s like crazy. They doubled up the
Aggies, 18-9, by the first timeout. But
the Aggies kept fighting and tightened up their defense. Aggie Clayton
Henry hit a three-pointer with about 2:00 minutes left in the half and got
it to within one point. This finally got
the crowd into it. Keyon Jones scored another three right after to tie it at 33. From here, the Aggies started taking over and
it was 43-39 Aggies at the half.
The stats showed the Miners beating the Aggies in the
stats, except in turnovers and shots taken.
Jack Nixon said he was going
to have an interview with umpire, Tony Randazzo
during halftime, but I never heard one.
I think I heard him this summer promoting his new book during a Flying Squirrels game. If he was selling books there at the Pan-Am,
I’m sorry I missed it.
The second half started well for the fans as a Miner
player missed two free throws early on.
The activated the free Chik-fil-a
deal. The Aggies were called for four fouls
early on, but kept scoring and kept up their defense. It was 54-42 Aggies with 14 minutes
left. Late in the game, the Miners fouled
out a player and had another in foul trouble.
The Aggies went up by 17 with five minutes left. On the last Aggie possession, the crowd gave
them a big cheer. 91-66 Aggies was our final.
The Aggies had five players in double figures. Clayton
Henry led the way with 14. The team
got scoring from 11 of 13 guys played. The
strategy from the team this season may be playing lots of guys and trying to
wear down opponents. They did that to
the Miners, who only used 8 players. The
Aggie defense also created a 12 to 6 advantage in turnovers. Okay, they’re looking good so far, but they’ve
got a big test coming up next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment