AMHERST, Texas – Freshman Reece Robb scored 10 points and freshman Madisyn Kruckeberg had a trio of 3-pointers for nine on Tuesday night, and Clovis Christian’s girls opened their season with a 29-28 victory over Amherst.

CCS built a 16-9 halftime lead, but the Lady Bulldogs rallied to go ahead by a point entering the final stanza. A last-second 3 attempt by Amherst rattled in and out.

Senior Dennys Reyes finished with 11 points for the Lady Bulldogs (1-3).

In other Tuesday area girls matchups:

Farwell 40, Christoval 32 – In a neutral-court game played at Sands H.S., junior Makylee Baldwin scored 12 points and junior Landri Richey added 10 as the Lady Blue improved to 5-1 for the season.

Farwell led 13-5 at the quarter and kept the Lady Cougars at bay the rest of the way. It was the first outing of the season against a Class 2A opponent for the 2A Lady Blue, whose first five games were against Class 3A and 4A competition.

Junior Jordyn Walker finished with 11 points and junior Madyson George added 10 for Christoval.

Muleshoe 58, Lockney 19 – At Muleshoe, the Lady Mules (3-5) opened a 37-5 lead at halftime and cruised past the winless Lady Longhorns (0-4).

Junior Aubrey Granados scored 19 points and sophomore Adalie Agundis added 14 for the Lady Mules, who posted their second consecutive win.

Elida 50, Carrizozo 10 – At Elida, the host Tigers made short work of the Lady Grizzlies in the season opener for both sides.

Elida led 10-1 at the quarter and 24-3 at halftime. High scorers for the Lady Tigers were freshmen Addison Yates with 12 points and Reatta Munsell with 10.

Junior Bryana Villanueva topped the Lady Grizzlies with five points.

Also on Tuesday, Silverton (3-3) pulled away in the final stanza for a 42-32 victory at home over Bovina (1-6).

In area boys action on Tuesday:

Elida 74, Carrizozo 30 – The host Tigers led 19-14 at the quarter, but dominated the Grizzlies the rest of the way in the season opener for both squads.

Senior Seth Jimenez funneled in 19 points for Elida, while juniors Hardy Fraze and Dylan Dobbins each scored 11. Senior Riley Gallacher led the Grizzlies with 11 points.

Childress 67, Farwell 59 – In a game played at Bushland H.S., the defending Class 3A state runnerup Bobcats (3-0) opened a 24-point halftime lead and held off the Steers (0-2), who are still less than two weeks removed from the Texas Class 2A football playoffs.

Seniors Aiden Allen and Billy Moore paced Childress with 15 and 14 points, respectively. For Farwell, five players scored eight or more points, led by sophomore Braddock Foster with 18 points and senior Cesar Snyder with 12.

Silverton 37, Bovina 43 – The homestanding Owls won their season opener, holding off a late run by the Mustangs (0-3) for the victory.

Senior Sawyer Francis led Silverton with 15 points, while senior Carlos Adams added nine. Seniors Yandel DeLeon and Michael Nieto with eight points each and Miguel Lopez and Gabriel Nieto with seven apiece topped the Mustangs.

Amherst 65, Clovis Christian 38 – At Amherst, the Eagles hung tough for three quarters before the Bulldogs used a 21-7 surge over the final eight minutes to put the game out of reach.

Senior Jaden Martinez paced CCS with 14 points, while senior Noah McKay added four 3-pointers for 12.

After four long days of testimony and public comment the Environmental Improvement Board (EIB) decided recently to move forward with Gov. Lujan Grisham’s plan to follow California’s “clean vehicle” standard. In practice that means New Mexico’s car dealers will have to increase sales of EV’s in New Mexico from the current 3 percent of all new vehicles to 43 percent by summer of 2026 and 82 percent by summer of 2031.

That may seem like a long time away, but the summer of 2026 is less than 3 years from now. New Mexico’s car dealers are the ones with the most to lose under this policy, but the new rules will negatively impact all New Mexicans. Car dealers rightly fear that New Mexicans will travel to neighboring states to purchase their cars. There is nothing to stop them. In fact, online super-seller Amazon just announced that it would begin selling vehicles online.

Amazon’s presence in the auto market alone is a problem for car dealers but if Amazon (and out-of-state dealers) can sell whatever consumers want and New Mexico dealers can’t, that is a big problem. Many car dealers are small businesses. New car dealers average 56 employees per dealership and employ a total of 6,314 New Mexicans statewide. Car dealers also pay numerous taxes (like property, payroll, and income) that Amazon and Texas dealers won’t pay when they sell cars to New Mexicans.

The EIB’s process is hugely problematic. New Mexico’s Democrats talk endlessly about defending “democracy” but when push comes to shove, elected bodies like the Legislature refuse to guard their own power. Every Democrat in the Legislature needs to go on the record in support or opposition to the Gov.’s mandate when seeing reelection in 2024. Notably, every single Republican in the Legislature signed letters in opposition to the proposal.

Sadly, despite overwhelming numbers of New Mexicans expressing their opposition (including 3,517 individual opponents through our KeepYourCarsNM.com website), the SEVEN-member Board voted on a mere 3-2 basis to adopt the mandate. The Gov. couldn’t even get an outright majority of her own appointed board to support her policies.

So, who supported it? Major environmental groups led the charge of course. But, in attending the hearings a common refrain from supporters (many of them wealthy, Anglo, EV owners from Albuquerque and Santa Fe) were that “EV’s work great for them.”

That attitude ignores the dire lack of charging infrastructure throughout rural New Mexico, an issue that is even more acute in Navajo Country. Apartment dwellers and those who do not own single family homes, while often living a “green” lifestyle will inevitably struggle to charge their mandated vehicles.

Factually speaking, this mandate cannot and will not work. New Mexicans will simply not have enough EV’s available to comply with this mandate with vastly more populous California having already embraced similar rules. Car dealers will go out of business and either Lujan Grisham or some future Gov. will either delay or modify this unworkable mandate.

The question is how many jobs will be killed in New Mexico? How many people and businesses will leave our state or choose not to come here due to the adoption of another ill-conceived public policy? We don’t know, but what we do know is that despite having the benefit of a large federal infrastructure (and the jobs and tax dollars it brings) and being the 2^nd-leading oil producing state in the entire country, New Mexico remains poor and is losing its young people.

In the name of environmental “sustainability” our Gov. has made New Mexico’s future less sustainable.

Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility