The El Paso Sunspots volleyball club played host to the 2010 Sun Country Volleyball Association (SURVA) regional championships on April 23-24, 2010. The regionals, split into two groups with the 15-18 age groups played in different venues throughout El Paso, and the 12-14s in Lubbock. For many of the club volleyball teams, the SURVA Regional [...]
I caught another Diamondback 18 Black/El Paso Wildfire scrimmage on Wednesday night–and another evening of great volleyball. The coaches on both sides of the net, the Diamondback’s Don Flora and Wildfire’s Al Rosen are amazing at what they do, and it’s entertaining to watch them run their squads through the drills. Since I don’t use [...]
I showed up at the last Aggie women’s basketball game of the season game at the half and enjoyed myself shooting/watching the game. My goal was to get some shots of the post-game senior presentations. While everyone was watching the cool presentation put together for the seniors, I tried to sneak some pictures of the [...]
Las Cruces played host to Carlsbad in first round action in the 5A state tournament. The Lady ‘Dawgs had little trouble with the youthful Cavegirls, defeating them 49-23, but Carlsbad fought hard. It was a fitting win for the senior-heavy Bulldawgs, who last year fell to Cibola in a first round home game. This year, [...]
To no one’s surprise, the Las Cruces and Mayfield girl’s squad met again to battle it out for the Distirct 3-5A Tournament Championship on February 27, 2010. The surprise, however, was the outcome; Las Cruces, the heavily favored team, ranked #2 in the 5A state polls, was dropped by the unranked Mayfield Trojans. These two teams [...]
I headed up to Albuquerque to photograph at the NM Juniors Chili Spike Qualifier last week–a last-minute decision I’m glad I made. My primary goal was to photograph the El Paso Wildfire, a 17s team that plays in Division I. There is a large pool of talented players in El Paso, and the Wildfire has [...]
This is my fourth fifth attempt at updating the blog since the last entry. I’ve been pretty busy with NMSU soccer and volleyball, some MVCS football and of course, a ton of prep volleyball. I’ve photographed two volleyball tournaments; the Margaret Hussmann Tournament of Champions and the Sweet Sixteen, and a few matches in between. [...]
It was an exciting weekend for Aggie and soccer fans alike as NMSU’s brand new soccer program played its inaugural game, an exhibition against New Mexico Highlands, this Saturday afternoon. Other than being a tad-bit really hot on the field, there was a great atmosphere with 1,400+ fans ready to see some NCAA soccer. Own-Goal [...]
The first practice of the season is always a significant one. At a glance, it may mean something a bit different for the football program (new coach) and the soccer team (new program, new coach) than for the volleyball program, but I think coach Jordan is going through a rebuilding of sorts as well. There’s [...]
I’ve managed to curb my whining about the lack of prep sports activities during summer through the magic of team camps. This time, it was the Mike Jordan team camp held at the Activity Center on the NMSU campus. I get to kill two birds with one stone in that I get some much needed [...]
My family and I made a quick escape from the heat and spent some time in Ruidoso last week. One of our usual haunts is Bonito Lake, just northeast of Ruidoso. When I’m not fishing, I drag the camera along and hunt for good shots. Since the water level has dropped significantly over the past [...]
Another great opportunity to catch new talent and meet new people presented itself at the Darin Spence Basketball Team Camp. There were several venues across Las Cruces for the camp to accommodate the 32 teams, so I chose the Pan Am Center since the Pan Am Auxiliary gym is close by and offered some good [...]
Las Cruces High girls basketball coach Matt Abney put on his Lady Bulldawg Team Camp last week, and overall I think it was very successful. I’m quickly learning that it’s impossible to be everywhere at once and schedules don’t always work out perfectly, so I inevitably miss some choice games. Since I don’t get to [...]
This is my second year of shooting the Cowboys for Cancer Research (C4CR) invitation photo, and this year I was given a little more control and time in setting up the shot. When I was given the spurs, I was blown away at the detail and beauty. The metal work was done by Kim Parkey [...]
The mysterious UFO over Las Cruces on Sunday evening.
Just when I thought things would die down, a whole bunch of new opportunities presented themselves. Last weekend I shot the Mesilla Valley Christian Schools’ Social. 2009 MVCS Social gallery Sound of Music On Thursday, I attended the opening night of The Mesilla Valley Christian Schools’ drama club performance of ”The Sound of Music”. With [...]
I crammed as much as my schedule would allow over the last week as things generally slow down for the summer. The Sundancer shoot was refreshing and helped get some of the cobwebs out as far as the portraiture goes. Hopefully there be some opportunities this summer to practice! NMSU Sundancers I went to this [...]
DeWayne Walker’s first scrimmage as the head football coach at NMSU went well. My primary assignment was to get shots of the new coaching staff for the Sports Information Department. In hindsight, I should have taken my flash for a little fill to counter the late afternoon sun, but considering all the stuff I forgot [...]
I had a chance to shoot the #24 ranked Aggie baseball team play Sacramento State on Sunday afternoon. It was a perfect day for a game and except for the dust devil that dumped dirt and sunflower seed shells all over me and the players in the dugout, the weather was gorgeous.
Since I’ve been focusing on the Big Time Hoops site and the girl’s side of basketball, I haven’t had a chance to catch a lot of the MVCS boys games. The move of the (somewhat) traditional MVCS Saturday games has thrown me for a loop as well, so I was disappointed when I missed their [...]
I thought I’d post my favorite sports shots of 2008. Not all them necessarily include action, but from my perspective there’s usually a memorable moment behind each. Number 10 Clovis vs Las Cruces (controlled scrimmage) – August 20, 2008 After an athletic interception and enthusiastic celebration, Clovis strong safety Denzel Pleasant is brought down to [...]
Like most newspapers do at this time of year, the Las Cruces Sun-News is covering significant sporting events over the past year. I realize that, in addition to these stories they’ve got a lot of others things to cover, but perhaps some more thought could have been into this when compiling significant events. Here is [...]
The Cruces ‘Dawgs traveled to El Paso to play the Franklin Cougars for their first game of the season on Tuesday. Unfortunately, the Cougars won in three straight matches–the ‘Dawgs did hang on tight in all the games, but just couldn’t finish it up. The ‘Dawgs and Cougar’s were “Playing for the Cure”, hence the [...]
For any photographer that likes to shoot sports, summer is typically a slow time of year spent longing for the fall sports to start winding up. I was lucky to have been invited to shoot the Christian Baseball League games as well as the NFL Junior Player Development (JPD) camp, so it kept my jonesing [...]
David and Rachel had their beautiful wedding recently at Cavalry Baptist in Las Cruces. After an amazing video and ceremony, they were judged (I’d say a little too harsh) on their first kiss. Lucky for them, the judges gave them a retry and they scored a perfect 10!
Last week, the MVCS JV & Varsity boys both played good games against the tough Tularosa teams. Anyone that caught the JV game was lucky enough to see an amazing play from Kevin Riley. With the game tied at 56 and less than three seconds left to play, he was able to prevent overtime by [...]
Congrats to the Lady Blazers with another hard fought victory over Tularosa, and their second District 5-2A championship is as many years. I got the shots from the MVCS/Tularosa game up last night, in record time. Check them out here. I thought the Glenn sisters had a wicked awesome game, and even though they defended [...]
Copyright © 2010 Rich Chavez.
