Story by
Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
New faces shine, unlikely heroes emerge from Lobo Howl season tipoff in the Pit
- Story byAlbuquerque Journal, N.M.
- New faces shine, unlikely heroes emerge from Lobo Howl season tipoff in the Pit
As Jake Hall, Uriah Tenette and Kaia Foster did a year ago, a new cast of characters had their first welcome to Lobo basketball moments at Friday night's Lobo Howl in the Pit.
Kate Wernli had a perfect, net-scorching round in the women's 3-point contest; roommates and Lobo men's team newcomers Hudson Mayes (dunk contest) and Tunde Vahlberg Fasasi (3-point contest) dethroned their heavily favored Lobo teammates (Tenette and Hall, respectively); and the play of the night — even if it did come amid a chorus of boos from the estimated 3,000 fans in attendance — came from one of the most unlikely sources of all.
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After the final round of Friday night's dunk contest, recently named Assistant Director of Marketing Marquiza Gallegos — with a headset on her head to help run the game-day operations and perfect open field tackling (if necessary) technique — got between Lobo football star offensive lineman Brian Booker.
Seriously.
Booker, the 6-foot-3, 330-pound lineman, was one of three guest judges in the dunk contest and when that was over, he got the crowd revved up some more by trying one dunk (and missing) and then another (and nearly twisting the rim off the backboard while also landing off balanced and awkwardly.)
Lobo football coach Jason Eck was not in attendance. He was out recruiting during his team's bye week.
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When Booker went to try a third, and as Athletic Director Ryan Berryman was hurrying to the court to stop the would-be disaster if Booker got hurt amid the Lobo football team's dream season happening across the street, Gallegos stepped in front of the huge lineman, hands up, and would not let him get around her (oh, and he tried).
The boos from the fans were, of course, in jest as they understood the stakes.
Besides, they'd just seen two premiere dunkers in Tenette and Mayes, the UC San Diego transfer, put on quite the show in the actual dunk contest.
"I surprised myself. I'm not gonna lie," Mayes said not of winning the dunk contest but of doing it against Tenette, who is as gifted a dunker as Lobo fans have seen just about ever.
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"Especially seeing him practice some dunks this week ... I think some adrenaline, with some luck of him missing some dunks, helped for sure."
One guy who said he had no doubt in Mayes winning the dunk contest was Vahlberg Fasasi, his roommate.
"I thought Huddy was gonna win," the transfer from William & Mary said. "I really did. He's my roommate, and I knew what he had planned."
NOTE: More context and content on the women's team participation and results from Friday's Howl will be published in a full article in Sunday's Journal.
3-point contest
For his part, Vahlberg Fasasi, the 6-7 forward from Sweden, pulled off maybe the main shocker of the night when he knocked Hall out of the 3-point contest in the first round.
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He then went on to knock off German freshman Fynn Lastring in the men's final before facing Wernli, who started the night off with a perfect score of 12 in the first round of the women's 3-point contest (the format for both men's and women's players was nine balls at three spots — one point for each make of the first two balls per rack and two points for making the third ball on a rack).
In the final, Wernli and Vahlberg Fasasi were tied at 6, then 7, then 8 before Vahlberg Fasasi hit the money ball for a final score of 10 and Wernli's miss of her money ball left her with eight, and gave the men's team this year's title after Foster beat Hall in last year's cross-team contest.
Swag shot
UNM student Josh Davis, the third and final UNM student who won a chance at a half court shot for a $300 gift card to the Lobo Den, made his shot and now gets to load up on Lobo gear.
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Skills contest
The team of Rytis Petraitis (men's team) and women's team players Keiara Curtis, Quintilla Hidalgo and Brynn Eshoo won the co-ed skills contests (there were four teams put together).
The contest consisted of one player having to make a quarter court pass through a hoop, a second player then making a 15-foot jump shot, a third then having to dribble through a set of cones and the fourth player dunking the ball.
Up Next
Sunday at 1 p.m. (2. p.m. CT) in Stillwater, Oklahoma, the Lobos men's basketball team will play the Big 12's Oklahoma State Cowboys in a preseason exhibition game at Gallagher-Iba Arena.
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The game will not be televised or streamed online, but there will be coverage by the Journal, including a pregame, live web show starting at noon MT (1 p.m. local in Oklahoma) on the Journal's YouTube page. The game will also be broadcast on radio on UNM's flagship station, 96.3 FM/770 AM.
The men have home exhibitions in the Pit Oct. 18 (Washington State) and Oct. 25 (Arizona State).
For the Lobos women's team, the next public event is an Oct. 26 exhibition game in the Pit against Division II Metro State University-Denver.
Geoff Grammer is the Sports Editor of the Journal, a podcaster, columnist and covers UNM Lobos basketball, among other things. Reach him at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.
