A dozen appeals turned in to the New Mexico Activities Association in regard to the latest classifications and alignments

A dozen appeals turned in to the New Mexico Activities Association in regard to the latest classifications and alignments released by its Board of Directors for the 2018-2020 school years

NMAA also releases its 2-5A cross country All-District team, with Capital senior Joseph Namingha on the list of state qualifiers for the third time

By ARNIE LESHIN, Santa Fe Today

The New Mexico Activities Association Board of Directors’ classifications and alignments don’t appeal to everyone, and the latest one has a dozen schools with appeals for the two-year block that begins with the 2018-19 school year.

Santa Fe Indian School and Pecos are two of them, and their respective athletic director and superintendent have offered their opinions and reasons for turning in appeals.

Braves’ athletic director Eric Brock is appealing his school’s placement in Class 4A in all sports besides football. He contends that boarding schools were swept into the nonpublic school multiplier even though they and Fort Wingate believe they do not benefit like private schools do in athletics.

Said Brock: “If the multiplier is designed to give some way to even the waters with those private schools that (the NMAA) feels have an advantage, us and Wingate got caught up in the ripple effect because we don’t fit in the same mold as the private schools.”

Pecos is requesting that it be placed in n a 3A district with Monte del Sol, Academy of Technology and The Classics, Tierra Enantada, Desert Academy and Espanola McCurdy.

Currently, the NMAA has the school in a district with Clayton, Logan and Santa Rosa, which Trujillo argued that puts stress on Pecos’ budget and forces students to miss more classroom time.

He also pointed out that one of the potential effects of the appeal is Logan, which petitioned to drop to 2A. That would leave the district with only three schools, and with Pecos possibly moving on as well.

The other schools that have appealed are Navajo Pine, Roswell High School, Wingate, Alamogordo, Albuquerque’s Atrisco Heritage Academy, Bernalillo, Dulce, Fort Sumner/House, and Shiprock.

The NMAA Board of Directors heard each appeal at Wednesday’s meeting in the NMAA Hall of Pride and Honor. It voted to table the final approval of Classifications and Alignment for the 2018-2020 block and the item will be revisited as a special meeting to be held later this month, but the exact date/time has not been finalized.

The next regularity scheduled Board of Directors meeting will take place on Feb. 14 of 2018.

The NMAA also released its District 2-5A boy’s division of the past cross country season with state-champion Albuquerque Academy occupying six of the 10 All-District team, and its head coach, Adam Kedge, as Coach of the Year.

Capital High senior Joseph Namingha is listed among the individual state qualifiers from the district, and as a team, the Jaguars placed fifth among the Chargers, Los Alamos, Espanola Valley and Albuquerque Del Norte. Namingha, in his third time in the state championships, finished 17th.n

He is the lone senior on head coach Rita Vigil’s XC roster. The rest of the lineup has juniors Joshua Namingha, Joseph’s brother, Carlos Lopez and Gabriel Molinar, and sophomores Dominic Luna, Abram Roses, Eric Garcia, and Marcus Lucero.