SportS 7ATHURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2015

News-Bulletin

O n D e c k

Belen swim registration Swimming lessons at the

Belen High Natatorium will begin again on Tuesday Feb. 2 and run through Friday, April 8. Lessons run Tuesday-Friday and are arranged in five sessions — Session 6, Tues., Feb. 2-Friday, Feb. 12; Session 7, Tues., Feb. 16-Friday, Feb. 26; Session 8, Tues., March 1-Friday, March 11; Session 9, Tues., March 15-Friday, March 25, and Session 10, Tues. March 29-Friday, April 8. Cost for each session in $30 per student.

Lesson times are: Advanced/Intermediate, 4-4:30 p.m.; Beginner, 4:30-5 p.m. and 5-5:30 p.m.; Parents and tots, 5:30-6 p.m.

For information on registra-tion, call the Belen High School Natatorium at 966-1338.

30-day passes and annual

passes are also available to swim at the BHS indoor pool, begin-ning at $15 for swimmers age 5 and under.

Enchantment registration Enchantment Little League

will be holding registration for the upcoming 2016 season for all seven divisions, from Pre-T-Ball up to Seniors, begin-ning in January. Cost is $80 for the first child, $75 for the second child and $70 for each additional child. Only cash or credit cards will be accepted for registration fees.

Parents/guardians must bring a birth certificate and three documents showing residency to register players as well as three registration forms, which are available online at www.enchantmentlittleleague.org. Registration will be held at the

Daniel Fernandez Youth Center, 1103 Hwy. 314 in Los Lunas from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday Jan. 6, Tuesday,. Jan. 19 and Wednesday Feb. 3 as well as from 7-9 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 14 and from 3-5 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 9, Jan. 16 and Jan. 30. For more informa-tion on registration, call 916-2170 or email enchantmentlittle-league@hotmail.com.

Belen AYSO VIP ProgramThe Belen American Youth

Soccer Organization Region 928 will be starting its Very Important Player program for players with disabilities in the spring. The program is for play-ers 4 years old and older, who have a disability that makes it difficult to participate in main-stream soccer teams. For more information, contact Angela

Cano at 610-3781.

Elite FC U9 SoccerThe Elite FC Girls U9 Los

Lunas Bomb Squad team is cur-rently looking for players for the Fall 2015/Spring 2016 Season. For information, contact Coach Kerry Trujillo at 440-2359.

Belen Pickle BallThe Belen Recreation Center

at Eagle Park hosts pickle ball from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays and from 1-3 p.m on Thursdays. For more informa-tion, call 861-0532.

(On Deck is a community ser-vice of the News-Bulletin. Items are rotated as space provides. All announcements must be submitted by noon Tuesday to be considered for the Thursday print edition.)

By Kenn RodriguezNEWS-BULLETIN SPORTS EDITORkrodriguez@news-bulletin.com

2015 is being called the “Year of the Heroine.” There are female heroes everywhere in pop culture — from the new “Star Wars” movie to the sports world, where Serena Williams was named Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated.

Well guess what, the Top Sports Stories of 2015 in Valencia County were also dominated by the female athletes this past year.

LL girls win second titlePicking the top story in the coun-

ty in 2015 was a little complicated, but seeing as how the Los Lunas girls basketball team won a second Class 5A state title in three years and appeared in a third straight state championship game, it seemed like the girls had earned it.

It’s not just that the Tigers won a state title; it’s also how they won it. Coach Marty Zeller’s squad won a school record 30 games, went unde-feated at home and undefeated in District 3-5A.

LLHS closed the season on a 25-game winning streak, which included a win in Gallup against their archrivals and former district foes, the Bengals, and winning the Hope Christian tournament, beating the Huskies, who themselves won a state title in Class 4A.

The Tigers didn’t lose to a Class 5A team all season and had to over-come a charged-up Gallup squad that played a virtual home game for the state title in The Pit.

So given all those factors, the Los Lunas girls basketball team gets the nod over world champion Holly Holm for the top county sports story of the year.

VHS softball wins stateSo surely winning a world cham-

pionship in stunning fashion by Holm, the Pride of Bosque Farms, “the Preacher’s Daughter,” is good enough for No. 2 right?

News-Bulletin file photos

THE LOS LUNAS GIRLS BASKETBALL

TEAM earned the school’s second

Class 5A state championship in three seasons in March at The Pit in Albuquerque,

defeating archrivals Gallup and completing

the most success-ful season in Los Lunas basketball

history at 30-2. The Tigers also ran

up a 25-game winning streak

during the season, went undefeated

in winning the District 3-5A regu-

lar season title.

See Top Stories, Page 8A

from the sidelines

Lerma deserved betterfrom Belen Schools

Kenn Rodriguez

I think it’s safe to say most of us have been fired from a job.

We know what it feels like. We know what it looks like, or at least what it’s supposed to look like.

When it happened to me, I was asked to come to a back office, by a sober-looking assistant manager-type. I didn’t hear the bad news from that person. I heard it from the manager who made the decision.

I knew the decision wasn’t personal. I felt a little better that at least I heard it in person, from the person who made the decision.

But that wasn’t how John Lerma was fired … oh, sorry. That’s not what happened.

The man who was the head coach for Belen High School varsity football didn’t have his contract renewed by the Belen Consolidated Schools. He wasn’t fired.

Unlike me, Coach Lerma wasn’t told in person that he no longer had his job.

According to Lerma, he was informed, over the phone, by Belen Athletic Coordinator Jim Danner that he was no longer head coach of a program that he built into one of the state’s most respected.

Danner seems like a good man. I haven’t worked with him that long. And he was Lerma’s supervisor. But the decision was not his to make. It was a decision made by Belen Schools Superintendent Max Perez.

But Lerma didn’t hear the news from him. That’s outrageous.

Lerma coached at Belen for eight seasons, won six district champion-ships and took the Eagles to the heights of the state title game — twice. Lerma and his players and coaches made the people of Belen as proud as ever of their football team.

Before 2009, Belen had been in one state championship game, under coach Evisalio “Bull” Padilla in 1963. Last school year, the Belen Board of Education briefly entertained the notion of naming Belen’s Eagles Stadium after Bull Padilla, who took BHS to one state championship game over 50 years ago.

And the school board wanted to name the stadium after him.

This is no knock on Coach Padilla or his team, but John Lerma coached Belen to two state championship games, and when his time was done, he got a phone call.

He had driven home for the holidays and was sitting at home in McAllen, Texas, when he got a phone call to let him know his services were no longer needed.

Wow. Didn’t he deserve better? Things gets lost in the bureaucratic

process of running a school district, I know. You can’t personally meet with everyone. You can’t do everything yourself from the superintendent’s chair, but some things should be handled in person.

A phone call just doesn’t cut it. Coach Lerma deserved more than a phone call.

But that’s not all there is to the story. Believe it or not, it gets worse.

To add insult to injury, the news

T o p S t o r i e s o f 2 0 1 5

See Sidelines, Page 8A

THE VALENCIA SOFTBALL TEAM, top, earned the school its first team sports state champi-onship in May.Bosque Farms-native Holly Holm, bottom, shocked the world by knocking out unde-feated UFC champ Ronda Rousey in November.

In any other year, yes.But the Valencia High School

softball team knocks Holm to the No. 3 story by virtue of being the first sports team at VHS to win a state championship.

That may not seem like a big deal, but considering that the school has only had varsity sports since 2008, it’s a terrific accomplishment to win a state title in seven seasons.

The Jaguars had won their first district title in 2014 and also won

their first playoff game. In 2015, the Jaguars came in second to the Centennial Hawks, who entered the 5A state tournament as the No. 1 seed and consensus favorites.

Valencia didn’t just beat them in the championship game, the Jaguars also beat them in the semifinals of the double elimination tournament, then followed that up with a win over an Aztec team that had elimi-nated the Jags from the state tourna-ment the year before.

It was a magical run for Valencia, the culmination of several years of hard work.

Holm upsets RouseySo now we finally get to Holly

Holm and the kick heard around the world. That’s actually too simple. Holm didn’t just kick UFC wom-en’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey in the head and steal the world title away.

Holm dominated the previously undefeated champion, literally beat-ing her at her own game in the title match Down Under, providing the mixed martial arts sport with its most stunning upset ever.

In reality, it wasn’t an upset. Holm was the better fighter — peri-od. And for that, her story definitely deserved to be named the top sports stories in the county for 2015. But sometimes you gotta give the young ’uns their due.

The Year of WomenMost of the biggest sports stories in 2015 centered on local female athletes

n Prep Basketball “Web Exclusive” coverage of this week’s Los Lunas Holiday Tournament at Valencia High.

n Weekly Scoreboard Features game and meet results as well as statewide rankings.

Online now at www.news-bulletin.com

NEWS-BULLETIN STAFF REPORTAfter the cancellation of sev-

eral basketball tournaments this week, Belen High will host a pair of boys basketball double-headers this weekend.

Friday night, the Eagles will host Piedra Vista at 7 p.m. Friday, with Mesilla Valley Christian taking on Farmington at 5 p.m.

On Saturday, the teams will exchange foes, with MVCS tak-ing on Piedra Vista at 11 a.m.,

and Belen playing Farmington at 1 p.m.

The Belen girls’ previ-ously scheduled game against Bernalillo will be played Saturday night at 7 p.m.

Belen and Piedra Vista were both scheduled to be at the Roswell Poe Corn Tournament, while Farmington was sched-uled to play in Clovis. Mesilla Valley was schedule to play in the Texico, N.M., tournament.

BHS to host boys hoops doubleheaders this weekend