Demons’ Graham inducted at Adams State
Peter Graham was absent from his duties as head cross-country coach at Santa Fe High as it played host to the Capital City Invitational this weekend, but it was for a good reason.
Graham, a 1980 graduate of Santa Fe High, spent the weekend in Alamosa, Colo., as part of Adams State College’s Hall of Fame ceremony, as the school recognized the 1983-89 teams that won seven consecutive NAIA titles. Graham was a part of the 1983 squad and he won the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference individual title in 1983.
Not to be left out was Los Alamos’ Rob Hipwood, who ran with Graham on the 1983 squad and was on three other national championship teams. Hipwood was the 1984 RMAC individual champion an the 1985 NAIA champion. Hipwood also was a part of the All-RMAC team that was announced in 2009 in honor of the conference’s 100th anniversary.
Speaking of honors, Modrall Sperling shareholder Anna Indahl was selected to Denison University’s Varsity D Association hall of fame class for this yea. Indahl, a 1995 Albuquerque La Cueva graduate, won 12 North Coast Athletic Conference swimming titles, was NCAC Swimmer of the Year in 1996 and took part of a national championship 400yard medley relay team in 1998.
Indahl was a four-time CSCAA Academic All-American, a Presidential Medalist (the highest honor bestowed upon a graduating senior at Denison University) and was awarded an NCAA post-graduate scholarship. She graduated magna cum laude in 1999 with a B.A. in environmental studies before attending the University of Michigan Law School.
Andrew Shelley’s 38-yard field goal
attempt in the second quarter of Saturday’s game at Dreamstyle Stadium ended a weird drought for the University of New Mexico’s football team.
Heading into the day the Lobos were one of just two teams in the FBS who hadn’t attempted a field goal all season. The other was Boston College, which ended its no-kicking ways earlier in the day when Danny Longman hit a 26-yard chip shot in the Eagles’ win over Temple. Shelley’s attempt came a few hours later when UNM was getting shellacked by Liberty in the first half.
It’s not a typo. This Friday’s prep football game between visiting Shiprock and St. Michael’s at the Christian Brothers Athletic Complex does, indeed, kick off at 2:30 p.m. The game was moved up to Friday afternoon because Shiprock coach Mike Switch got Horsemen coach Joey Fernandez on the phone and said a number of his players will be attending a religious feast on Saturday night in the Four Corners area and he feared he wouldn’t have enough players to field a team if the game were to go on as scheduled on Saturday afternoon.
Fernandez agreed and, because St. Michael’s doesn’t have lights, the game will start when most parents, fans and students are either still at work or still sitting in class.
“It’s going to be weird,” Fernandez said. “The kids will still be in class and I’m not sure how many people are going to be able to leave work on a Friday afternoon, but what else are we going to do? I didn’t want [Shiprock] to forfeit and the kids want to play the game, so we moved it.”
Speaking of the Horsemen, receiver Luke Kastendieck said one of the better parts of his team’s 0-3 start was learning just how quickly people were willing to jump off the bandwagon when things got a little rough.
“We kind of dropped in the rankings and I think people just kind of started forgetting about us,” he said. “I’m kind of surprised by that.”
St. Michael’s has righted the ship by following lopsided losses to Class 4A’s top three teams — Taos, Portales and Bloomfield — by hammering city rivals Capital and Santa Fe High.
“Yeah, I’m not going to say anything about that,” said Horsemen head coach Joey Fernandez. “Maybe some people have an opinion about it but that’s OK. We’re just happy we’ve gotten a few wins and gotten things going.”
Dulce called it a season for its football program two weeks ago, forfeiting the rest of the year due to a lack of players, which led to a domino effect as far as its District 2/5-2A members scrambling to find a replacement game. Escalante found a game with Aztec’s junior varsity on Sept. 29, which the Lobos won in a 64-14 rout at home. Meanwhile, Questa, which only had six games on its schedule before Dulce’s forfeit, found a replacement game with Laguna Acoma on Friday. Newcomb replaced Dulce with a road game against Cuba on Oct. 12.
The team left out of the shuffle were the McCurdy Bobcats, who did not find a replacement and appear to be headed to a nine-game schedule.
St. Michael’s ran under the lights at the Desert Twilight Festival, and the girls team finished in second place as a team in the small-school division with 163 points. Leading the way for the Lady Horsemen were eighth grader Logan Hunt, who was 18th overall, and Violet Eklund, who was right behind Hunt in 19th. The boys team was 45th, with Justin Sanchez leading the way with a 33rd-place performance.