Thursday’s 13-6 win over visiting Capital means the Sundevils (3-0) have walked off the field winners in 11 of their last 13 games dating to last season. 

Joey Butler is accustomed to filling big shoes.

Volleyball

The Division II school is going all-in with its familiar purple color scheme for a new floor inside the John A. Wilson Complex, a 4,250-seat multipurpose arena that serves as home to its basketball, volleyball and wrestling programs.

You’d be hard-pressed to find any two teams as different as Española Valley and Capital. One is well on its way to playoff contention while the other is just trying to score a point.

Johnson was the Aggies’ starting quarterback during the 1959 and 1960 seasons during which he led the team to consecutive wins in the Sun Bowl. He was later drafted into both the NFL and AFL, playing 15 seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals, Houston Oilers and Denver Broncos.

Norah Holladay’s mind was made up before the play even began — she was going to block whatever came her way.

Boys soccer

The Arizona Outlaws, a select team of players 23 years old and younger, knocked off Los Santos 35-17 on Sunday in the championship game of the Fiesta Tens Tournament at the Municipal Recreation Complex.

"I love the energy," Horsemen senior Cole Sandoval said. "I love the student sections, the crowds; the coaches are yelling, the players are yelling. Everyone is talking crap to each other. I love the intensity. That's what I want."

Senior associate AD for sports administration Ed Manzanares was once the youngest NCAA Division II basketball coach in the country when he took the reigns at New Mexico Highlands before he turned 30.

Senior setter Haley Aguilar had 20 assists to lead the offense, Kaycee Tsosie turned 11 of them into kills and Kailynn Calabaza added seven.

Danny Gonzales didn’t go to Tucson empty handed. He took running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt and offensive lineman Shancco Matautia with him via the transfer portal.

It was the first time this season the Horsemen faced adversity, but the defending Class 3A champions showed their mettle to start the second half.

The Demons coach pushed all the right buttons in the second half after spotting the Eagles a 21-7 lead at the midway point. 

Leading his team onto the field for the first time as the school’s coach, Kurt Taufa’asau launched what he hopes is an era of sustained growth at NMHU. While his debut didn't go quite as well as he'd hoped, the first step is finally in the record books.

Correction appended

Hey, Siri, how long does it take to prepare crow?

This weekend, Los Santos will honor the 50th year of its annual Labor Day Santa Fe Tens Tournament in the best way possible — by playing rugby. 

Hired in the spring to take over the football program at New Mexico Highlands University, Kurt Taufa’asau has spent the last few months quickly molding a roster and a coaching staff with as much talent as he could scrape together.

Girls soccer

Last year was a watershed moment for the program, as it made its first championship appearance.

It’s pretty clear St. Michael’s should be the class of Northern New Mexico again, but has that gap closed?

As far as first weeks go for the prep football season, this one was relatively tame.

The Horsemen didn't let the absence of head coach Joey Fernandez phase them in their 42-0 season-opening blowout of the Taos Tigers.

Words like "brutal" and "demoralizing" could go well with countless other descriptors of Montana State’s 35-31 win in Bronco Mendenhall’s debut as Lobos coach.

In a game that was a sloppy, defensive battle, and Santa Fe High's Santiago Villaseñor was a huge playmaker when the moment arose, and he thanked his coach for that.

Montana State, which opens the season ranked No. 4 in the Football Championship Subdivision, has been installed by as much as a 13.5-point favorite.

“I think the team we had last year was pretty good and a lot of us just kind of learned how to do things as we went along,” said senior Reed Bass, the team’s starting quarterback.

Head coach Andrew Martinez said previous Santa Fe high teams talked big, but the results were lacking with a combined 2-17 record over the past two seasons.

Joey Fernandez will miss the season's opening games against Taos and Capital. An anonymous source claims the suspension is due to an expletive-filled video from last season following a win.

Santa Fe High had plenty of scoring chances in the second half before Cy Anderson recorded his first goal of the season.

If nothing changes, nothing changes. That is the credo John Michael Salazar is living by in his first year as the head football coach at Capital. 

It's time to dust off the crystal ball, break out the tarot cards and summon our inner Nostradamus to forecast this week's opening salvo of the high school football season.

Marley Belyeu has a chance to do for others what was done for her when she was an underclassman with the Santa Fe Prep girls soccer team.

David Williams, UNM's deputy athletic director, has been named interim athletic director, the school announced Thursday afternoon. Williams will fill the spot vacated by Eddie Nuñez, who is the new athletic director at the University of Houston.

Class 5A

Their new independent status gives the Braves a real shot at a hard reboot, to pile up a few wins and bring some nonexistent swagger to a program that has gone 2-17 the past two years and hasn’t had a winning season since 2015.

The Demons weathered high temperatures and hot tempers in their season-opening win against Albuquerque High.

The bulk of last year's Demons squad is returning. Even better is the addition of several players who missed all or significant parts of the 2023 season because of injuries or ineligibility.

The cast of favorites among Northern New Mexico schools will look familiar — Santa Fe High, Los Alamos and Las Vegas Robertson have the looks of district and state contenders. However, there could be a few surprises in the 2024 season.

Within 48 hours of one another, the state’s Division I schools learned two of their biggest sports names -- Eddie Nuñez and Jack Nixon -- would be leaving their posts.

The program's goal is to play on the last Saturday of the season. For seven of the past 10 years, the Cardinals have done just that.

Eddie Nuñez gets to keep his work outfit’s color scheme; he will just do it for a different school.

Boys soccer

Was this a sign of the new-look Dons, who won’t back down from any challenger?