Five high school wrestling teams shoot for outdoors
Silver among those that staged event at WNMU
Wrestling, al fresco. A unique partnership between Silver High and Western New Mexico last weekend created one of the most unusual scenes of the year in what has already been the most unconventional of prep sports seasons: Outdoor wrestling. “We started doing our research,” said Silver athletic director Gary Allison. “We couldn’t find anything else at the high school level that does that. We decided … to see if we could be the first.”
With two mats placed on the WNMU football stadium, and nearly 400 fans in the stadium watching, Silver — along with Deming, Oñate, Las Cruces and Centennial — staged a five-team dual-match competition Friday night.
“Change,” Colts wrestling coach Luis Alvarado said, “is sometimes good.”
As Grant County has been in a “yellow” health code status, no fans are allowed to watch Silver’s wrestlers inside the hometown gym.
“It was our way of giving back,” Alvarado said.
Allison and Mustangs AD Scott Noble hatched this idea a couple of months ago, wanting to give prep wrestlers a stage unlike any other they’d had in their lives.
Noble is a wrestling fan, his son is a wrestler. He knew some Division I programs — the University of Iowa, for example — had rolled the mats out for matches in the football stadium.
“It worked out great,” Noble said. “The weather wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t terrible.”
Once the wrestling began, Noble said, winds disrupted one of the two mats for a few moments, but officials solved that by placing weights on each corner. The action continued until almost 9 p.m.
“It was quite awesome,” Western New Mexico sports information director Dakota
Spillers said. “(Silver) wanted their athletes to feel big-time.”
It was only the previous day, on Thursday, that the prep wrestling season had been suspended by the state before eventually being restored a few hours later.
Allison said Silver hopes to make this an annual event at Western, but it will be a little trickier going forward when wrestling returns to its late fall/winter calendar slot and the weather doesn’t figure to be as friendly as it is was for this event in mid-April.
“Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t,” Alvarado said with a laugh.
Nov. 13, a Saturday afternoon, already has been circled for the next outdoor competition in Silver City, with plans for more mats and quite a few more teams. Officials hope for nice weather.
“Maybe (it won’t) be under the lights,” Noble said, “but to be outside in a big open area, it is a great atmosphere. We are certainly going to do our part to help our high school accomplish such a tournament.”
KUYKENDALL HONORED: Hope Christian sophomore Rendon Kuykendall, who ran to victory last month at the Class 4A state high school meet at Albuquerque Academy, is Gatorade’s spring choice for New Mexico male cross country athlete of the year.
He is the first Hope boy to earn this award, and his victory at state was part of a 1-2-3 individual showing by the Huskies as they won the 4A team championship.
A FULL SCHEDULE: Eldorado’s boys and girls basketball teams will be extremely busy when the school comes out of lockdown next week.
The boys and girls both will play four games in four days, beginning April 28, giving them each enough regularseason games to be eligible for the state tournament.
The additional games will create two matchups next week against rival La Cueva. The girls (3-1) will play the Bears on consecutive nights, April 29-30, while the boys (2-1) face La Cueva April 29 and May 1.
To be eligible this season, Eldorado must play a minimum of 51 percent (or six) of their 10-game district schedules.
THIS AND THAT: Rachel Williams, a 5-foot-8 senior guard/forward for Eldorado, has committed to play for coach J.R. Giddens at Northern New Mexico College in Española. … Los Lunas’ Kylie Burgess has signed with the University of Jamestown (Jamestown, North Dakota) where she’ll run track. … Cibola football player Nathan Lopez has been invited to play in the Hawaii Tiki Bowl in December in Honolulu.