bleedCrimson.net: Kind of a mixed weekend out in Tucson. What did you see over the course of the whole weekend from the team?
Mike Jordan: Illinois State with their sweep of Arizona and their sweep of us, they're a pretty good volleyball team. We knew that going in. They're a little bit streaky like a lot of teams early. They have the ability to play poorly but they've played a lot of good matches and they were really good this weekend. I was impressed. They have two great middles and they gave us fits. In addition to that, we were our own worst enemy in a lot of ways. It was a real failure to execute in the scouting report in trying to stop them and we didn't serve and pass as well as we normally do. I think you give Illinois State a lot of credit for some of that. I think they had a pretty good serving strategy and they hit some really tough serves. It sort of kept us off balance and we gave them too many easy balls back and they were able to get the ball to their middles. We were not in the right spots nearly often enough.

The Arizona match, I felt like going into it that our teams were pretty similar in styles of play. Physical, athletic, can take some real highlight reel swings. Obviously their bodies are a little longer, taller, athletic versions of ours but I felt like it was two similar volleyball teams in styles of play and that proved to be the case. It was back and forth. It was a fun match in a lot of ways. We were really on the verge of knocking off a PAC-12 team. When you go up 8-4 at the turn in the fifth set and you've got some seniors on the floor, there's an expectation that they'll close it out and unfortunately we didn't. We made a lot of really bad swings when we needed to step up and get kills. It's frustrating but it happens. Unfortunately it happened that night and what could have been a win against a quality opponent turned into a loss. I'm past the stage with this group of any kind of moral victories. This team's gotta start finding ways to win late and make plays late. We don't have a true go-to attacker in a sense, a superstar like Gwen Murphy from two years ago or a Desiree Scott, Kayleigh Giddens, Lindsey Yon, Trinia Cuseo, Stevi Adams, you name them, we don't have that kind of player but we've got a lot of good, solid players and some upperclassmen who I'm hoping will do their best to fill that role.

William & Mary, I thought we played really well in stretches. Our serve and pass game was pretty good. We were the more physical team and I think that showed. We were pretty efficient, especially in the first and third. We kept our unforced errors down and won our fair share of long rallies. I was happy with that. We were able to get a few younger players in the match. We're trying to get some people healthy and get them a little bit more experience. I think you'll see Bridgette Lowe play a little bit more and Megan Hart's doing better from that ankle injury. We've got a little more depth to use so that's great.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - New Mexico State football hosted the Troy Trojans at Aggie Memorial Stadium to open Sun Belt Conference play on Saturday night. Time was the Aggies biggest enemy as they got within three points after a touchdown and two-point conversion, but Troy went on to run out the clock and defeat NM State, 27-24.

After the close loss to Sun Belt Conference powerhouse Troy in front of a strong Aggie crowd, head coach Doug Martin said, ““I want to complement the crowd tonight and the people that were there. That was a great college football atmosphere and it was fun playing in front of that crowd. This was a great college football game between two great teams. When you have a game with no turnovers on either side, that’s about as good as it gets in college football and the good news is we were there. I couldn’t be more proud of our guys and the way they competed.”  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

TUCSON, AZ - New Mexico State volleyball closed out its run at the Wildcat Classic with a win over William and Mary on Saturday. The Aggies swept the Tribe 25-19, 25-22, 25-12 to finish the tournament.

"We finished well. We were tired, obviously, but worked through it," head coach Mike Jordan said. "We were able to play some younger players in the match and they performed well."

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Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

TUCSON, AZ - New Mexico State volleyball fell to Arizona in five sets at the Wildcat Classic on Friday night. The Aggies were defeated 20-25, 25-22, 16-25, 25-21, 11-15 for their second-straight loss.

"We battled and played well in spurts. Our two teams are very similar, we're physical but make too many errors," head coach Mike Jordan said. "It was back-and-forth and I loved our effort until the very end."

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Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

TUCSON, AZ - New Mexico State volleyball opened the Wildcat Classic with a loss to Illinois State on Friday. The Aggies fell in straight sets 19-25, 22-25, 19-25.

"We can't make this many unforced errors and expect to beat a good team," head coach Mike Jordan said. "We played poorly and lost almost every long rally. Give credit to Illinois State, they played well defensively."

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Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - New Mexico State's head softball coach Kathy Rodolph announced the additions of associate head coach Thomas Ramos and volunteer coach Pam Stone to her staff for the upcoming season.

"I'm excited to introduce two new coaches to the NM State softball staff. Tommy Ramos is a seasoned veteran coach with over 19 years of head coaching experience. He comes to us from Midland College. I hired him to replace Cat Heifner and to lead our powerful offense," Rodolph said. "He has plenty of experience in developing hitters as he led the nation in batting average while at Midland College. I'm super excited to have Tommy join the Aggie staff."  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - The three-time defending Western Athletic Conference Champion New Mexico State women's basketball team announced its 2017-18 schedule that features 14 home games and 14 road matches with a matchup against a top PAC-12 team.

The Aggies welcome back eight players from the 2016-17 squad who led the team to a 24-7 record, which included a WAC regular season and tournament title as well as an appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

Head coach Brooke Atkinson brought in three new faces to the coaching staff for the upcoming season. Assistant coaches Ryan McAdams, Aisha Stewart and DeAudra Brown all join the NM State family. Earl Lewis returns for his second season as director of basketball operations.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: You're four weeks into the season now, what have you learned about your team through the first three weekends of play?
Mike Jordan: I like the tempo we play at. We've been too high error at times. I think that's been the major bone of contention with the coaching staff. We've just got to take better care of the ball offensively better than we have but we're already seeing some progress. The first two weekends taught us a lot. I think this past weekend, we didn't get the same kind of pressure put on us. We didn't have anybody the caliber as UCLA for instance, but we still made fewer attack errors and better attack choices and I think those two things go hand-in-hand.

We're an improved blocking team from a year ago but we've still got a ways to go. We've got too many bad block touches. We're working hard at that right now, along with the attacking, those are the number one goals in practice.

bc.net: Defensively how is your team? The numbers look good and even the match against UCLA they hit .236 where a team of that caliber, you wouldn't necessarily be surprised to see them hit over .300 early in the season against you.
MJ: Yeah. I'd stack our defense up, obviously blocking is part of that, but as far as the floor defense goes, I would stack us up against anybody. I think we dig it really, really well. We give really good effort all of the time. I've been really pleased with that. We give ourselves a lot of transition opportunities to score because of how many balls we dig and I think we can get better at that too. We've got a couple of players, Natalie Mikels is just a freshman and she's learning every day. But athletically we're quick and I think what we're doing from a system standpoint is really beneficial for us.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

NEW ORLEANS, LA – The Sun Belt Conference announced the football player of the week awards on Monday. New Mexico State quarterback Tyler Rogers took offensive player of the week and safety Ron LaForce earned the defensive honors.

In the 30-28 victory over Battle of I-25 rival New Mexico, quarterback Tyler Rogers was 34-for-57 for a total of 401 yards with a career-high four touchdowns. Rogers spread the ball around connecting with 10 different receivers on the night.

The Peoria, Ariz. natives 401 yards and four touchdowns are second in the Sun Belt Conference for individual game-highs in 2017 and his 81-yard connection with Izaiah Lottie on Saturday is the longest pass this season of all Sun Belt quarterbacks.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Written By: NM State Athletic Dept.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - New Mexico State volleyball opened the Borderland Invitational with a 3-0 win over Abilene Christian. The Aggies won in straight sets 25-17, 25-17, 25-22 to defeat the Wildcats.

"It's nice to get a sweep especially when you have two more matches in the next 24 hours," head coach Mike Jordan said. "[Tatyana Battle] and I spent a lot of time on decision making and shot selection. She did a really good job of working the ball off the edges when we were out of system and did not hit the ball low into the block. For her to make those adjustments and have that success, it's a great thing and that's what you want to see from your players."

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