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EL PASO – UTEP Athletic Department officials announced on Wednesday that football series with old Western Athletic Conference (WAC) rivals Nevada and New Mexico have been renewed for future seasons.

“We’re excited to renew rivalries with old WAC foes New Mexico and Nevada,” said head coach Sean Kugler. “Both are teams that El Paso fans are very familiar with and will be excited to see.”

The Miners will play host to the Wolf Pack on Sept. 21, 2019, and travel to Reno, Nevada on Sept. 12, 2020.  UTEP is scheduled to meet the Lobos on Sept. 25, 2021 in the Sun Bowl while paying a visit to Albuquerque, N.M. on Sept. 17, 2022.

UTEP squared off with Nevada on three occasions (2000-02) previously.  The Wolf Pack has a 2-1 series edge, with the Miners emerging triumphant in Reno (45-22) during their WAC championship 2000 season.

The last time the Miners faced the Lobos was in the 2014 season opener at Albuquerque. UTEP defeated New Mexico 31-24 on its way to an appearance in the New Mexico Bowl.

The UTEP-New Mexico series is the second-longest in school history (78 games) next to NM State (94 contests). New Mexico leads the series, 43-32-3. The Miners and the Lobos were joint members of the WAC from 1968-98.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – UTEP freshmen Pamala Baber (two home runs) and Macey Brown (three RBI) had breakout performances as the Miners split their two games at New Mexico.

The Lobos (10-10) scored three runs in the sixth to rally from 6-4 down to win game one, 7-6, while the Miners (5-15) secured a 7-4 victory after scoring three runs in the seventh at Lobo Softball Field on a Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s nice to come off a hard loss when you’re ahead and you lose it towards the end of the game, so it’s nice to bounce back and get that win,” fourth-year head coach Tobin Echo-Hawk said. “(In game two) when (New Mexico) tied it in the bottom of the sixth, it was one of those where the team could’ve crumbled and said, ‘oh, here we go again’, but they did nice job getting some runs and putting pressure on the other team.”

Baber connected on her first career home runs, one in each contest, and reached base in her last six at bats. Baber launched a monster two-run home run in the fourth inning of game one, the first of her career, and connected on a solo shot in the game two.

Baber, in those six at bats, homered and doubled in game one; followed with her second dinger, two consecutive walks and a single in game two.

Brown, who started at the designated player, had entered game two with no hits. Brown connected on her first career knock that resulted in a RBI and followed her next at bat with a two-run double.

“It’s nice to see (Baber and Brown) come into their own and finally start to hit the ball,” Echo-Hawk said. “We know they can hit. I think as freshman they’re working into things and getting used to how our game works, the speed of our game. They both had clutch hits, so I couldn’t be happier and I hope it continues.”

The Miners tallied 11 hits in the first game and a season-high 13 knocks in game two, making it five consecutive games with double-digit hits and eight of the last 11 contests.

UTEP 6, New Mexico 7

The Miners took a 4-0 lead after Baber’s two-run bomb over left. The scoring spree started with Courtney Clayton crossing the dish in the third inning. Clayton swiped third base, while an error by the catcher paved the way for the runner to score. In the fourth, prior to Baber’s home run, Mallorie Cross gave UTEP a 2-0, plating Mariah Ellis on a double to center. Ellis was hit by a pitch on the helmet to reach base.

New Mexico answered with three runs in the bottom fourth led by Cheyenne Smith’s two RBI. In the fifth, UTEP took a 5-3 lead on an Ellis RBI single that plated Lindsey Sokoloski.

UTEP would take a 6-4 lead in the sixth on a Sokoloski RBI double that scored Baber.

But the Lobos took the go-ahead 7-6 lead on a one-out, three-run home run by D’Andra DeFlora.

Sokoloski tied her career high with her second consecutive three-hit performance (3-for-4), while Cross established her career high with three knocks (3-for-4). Baber also registered a career bests in hits (two) and runs scored (two).

Taylor Grohmann started the contest, throwing 4.0 innings. UTEP stole three bases as Sokoloski swiped her second of the season, and Ellis and Clayton stole their first of the year.

UTEP 7, New Mexico 4

The Miners took a 4-1 lead in the sixth on Brown’s first career hit and RBI. But the Lobos would tie the contest in the bottom half on back-to-back home runs – a two-run shot by Michala Erickson and a solo shot by Lauren Wilmert.

But UTEP didn’t let it phase them as Pepi led off the seventh with a triple to deep right field. Ariel Blair was then inserted to pinch run for Pepi. Cross gave her squad a 5-4 lead on a sacrifice fly to center field that scored Blair. Baber followed with a two-out single, while Ryder reached on an error to set the stage for Brown.

The first-year Miner used her second career hit to double in Baber and Ryder to take the 7-4 lead.

Devyn Cretz (4-3) earned the win, throwing 1.2 innings. The redshirt freshman, who didn’t record a strikeout in her last start, fanned three Lobo batters. Cretz used back-to-back Ks to get Callie McGarrigle looking and Jade Gray swinging to end the contest.

Clayton recorded her seventh multi-hit game of the season and 49th of her career after a 3-for-5 outing. Ryder tied her career high in hits on a 3-for-4 performance, while Baber went 2-for-2 with two walks. Taylor Sargent was busy at first base as she recorded 10 putouts (17 total in the two games).

Up Next

UTEP will open Conference USA action at North Texas March 11-12. The Miners and Mean Green will play a doubleheader on Saturday starting at noon MT/1 CT. Sunday’s series finale is set for noon MT in Denton. UTEP swept North Texas in El Paso last year, while the Mean Green won all three games against the Miners during the 2015 series.

SANTA FE, N.M. – Some New Mexico groups are joining the call for more scrutiny of mega-mergers now in the works between multinational agribusiness companies that dominate the global market for seeds and pesticides.

More than 300 groups have signed a letter to new U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asking him to review pending mergers between Dow Chemical and DuPont, Monsanto and Bayer, and Syngenta and ChemChina.

Patty Lovera, the assistant director of the nonprofit Food and Water Watch, says these mergers would concentrate too much power in too few hands.

“Six companies really control, largely, the whole seed supply,” she said. “This deal would take it down to four, and they can charge more for the seeds and the chemicals that they use to grow them. And that could ripple through the whole food supply.”

The groups predict that if these deals close, the three mega-companies would control 80 percent of the American corn-seed market, three-fifths of commercial seed sales and 70 percent of the world’s pesticide market.

Lovera says the food system needs farmers across the world to grow many different varieties of crops in order to thrive.

“In terms of having a system that could bounce back from a disruption,” she added. “You know, whether that’s a changing climate or some new pest, we need more diversity in that system, not less.”

Lovera notes that President Donald Trump met with top executives of Monsanto just before the election. The letter, which was also signed by the group Environment New Mexico, presses Attorney General Sessions to keep politics out of the merger review process.

Author: Suzanne Potter, Public News Service – NM

The Bureau of Land Management has finalized rules that encourage increased solar and wind energy production on public lands, and it’s making New Mexico a priority.

The policies create a competitive process similar to the way oil and gas leases are granted. The new rules also offer financial incentives to steer production away from key environmental, cultural and recreational resources, said Alex Daue, assistant director of energy and climate at The Wilderness Society.

“And this rule will ensure that our public lands continue to be a place where we can build wind and solar projects delivering clean energy, growing our economy and protecting the places that people love in the West,” Daue said.

The BLM said that putting some 700,000 acres of public lands to work in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah should help the agency reach the Obama administration’s goal of developing 20,000 megawatts of renewable power by 2020.

Shifting political winds after Donald Trump’s upset victory have put the future of many of the current administration’s environmental initiatives into question, notably the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

Daue said he is confident the BLM’s new policies can withstand the GOP control of the White House and Congress.

“With the rule-making, BLM will be receiving fair market value for the use of public lands as called for by Congress. And western communities strongly support more renewable energy development,” Daue said. “We think that it will stand on its own merits and should stand the test of time.”

Under the old rules, he added, getting a permit for development could take up to two years, but the new streamlined process should cut that time by more than half for areas with high power-generation potential. The regulations will become effective 30 days after they are published in the Federal Register.

Suzanne Potter, Public News Service – NM

People in Las Cruces will join other New Mexico cities this month to hear entries from a diary of Japanese Americans interned at the Lordsburg prison camp when a panel brings their life stories to New Mexico State University.

“Confinement in the Land of Enchantment: The Untold Story of a Prison Camp in New Mexico” is scheduled from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at the Health and Social Services Auditorium on campus. The presentation will detail the imprisonment of the Japanese in U.S. prison camps during World War II and include a comparison of camps in Wyoming and New Mexico.

During WWII, the U.S. government forced 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, including men, women and children, into prison camps in remote locations. Four of these camps were located in New Mexico between 1942-46 in Santa Fe, Fort Stanton, Raton and Lordsburg.

“The experience of Japanese Americans during World War II is not well known, especially that we had internment camps in New Mexico,” said Hunner, history professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. “By holding this presentation and panel discussion, we will explore what happened to Japanese Americans in the American West and help discuss the treatment of these mainly American citizens during the war.”

Hunner will moderate a question and answer session for the panel, which will include Nikki Nojima Louis, Sam Mihara and Herb Tsuchiya, who were imprisoned as children, along with Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima and his father Mike as well as NMSU anthropology professor Fumiyasu Arakami and Victor Yamada, special projects coordinator for the New Mexico Japanese American Citizens League.

Mihara, a retired engineer and consultant who now tours the country as a public speaker, and his family were moved to a remote prison camp in Northern Wyoming where they remained for three years, living in a single 20-by-20-foot room. Mihara will begin the discussion about the War Relocation Authority and his imprisonment at Heart Mountain in Wyoming.

Louis, a playwright, educator and performer, whose father was incarcerated in the Lordsburg and Santa Fe camps, will talk about the New Mexico camps and read from a diary written in Japanese by Lordsburg prisoners and translated into English for this project. Entries from this diary will shared for the first time during presentations in various New Mexico cities in November. Tsuchiya will also read from the diary, which was donated by Mihara.

Yamada will discuss the confinement of Japanese Americans in New Mexico and the next translation project to preserve this history.

NMSU’s College of Arts and Sciences, the history department and the New Mexico Japanese American Citizens League are sponsors. The New Mexico Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities funded the project.

Author: Minerva Baumann – NMSJU