NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – The University of New Mexico Athletics are adding new technology to help keep their facilities safe. UNM Head Baseball Coach Ray Birmingham helped bring this new technology to UNM, as he has a relationship with one of the engineers at Clean Spray Technologies.

This new company is providing a system that sprays a clean and safe disinfectant at 360 degrees. “First of all, we have a liquid disinfectant that’s all-natural, environmentally safe, it doesn’t harm the skin, it doesn’t harm the eyes, doesn’t hurt to breathe. It’s sprayed onto a surface, once it dries you can reuse the surface. When it lands on the surface it cleans everything, it cleans everything, it kills all bacteria and viruses. We have lab tested it and it’s proven to work,” said Roger McElwrath, Vice President of Business Development CleanSpray USA and CleanSpray Technologies.

This system is now being installed at Tow Diehm Athletic Facility at UNM and coach Birmingham says the new UNM Locker Room will be the next building to have this fogging system installed.

“I have seen this system working and it’s pretty cool. It’s almost like a movie with a fog coming out of it and that’s my description and it just comes out and it settles in the room. It’s done in a quick fashion, it’s dry in a quick fashion,” said Birmingham.

Sticking with baseball, the MLB will start their 2020 season on Thursday as they will play two opening day games. Former Lobo and now Minnesota Twins catcher Mitch Garver and his squad will play their first game on Friday against the Chicago White Sox, but with a lot of questions surrounding this season and fears of the pandemic, people like Garver have been vocal on their opinions. Some players have even opted out of playing this season, but for Garver, whose salary is on the low end of the MLB, he says he had to play.

“I go into arbitration after this year. So, if I were not to get a full year of service time and play another year in 2021, under the league minimum and I would be in my age 30 season. So, I think everybody has to pick and choose their battles here,” said Garver.

Now to college football, The Big-10 and Pac-12 have announced that their football teams will play a conference-only schedule in 2020, which has people wondering what will other conferences do. The Mountain West Conference has yet to announce their plans for fall sports, but on Monday they did announce that they are canceling their annual Mountain West Media Days, which gives the media a chance to catch up with every coach and a few players from every team in the conference.

This year’s media summit was going to be virtual and was supposed to run next week but now it is to be determined on when the Media Days will take place. The MW will release its 2020 football predicted order of finish, all-conference teams and individual awards this week though:

• Tuesday, July 21 – Mountain and West Division Predicted Order of Finish
• Wednesday, July 22 – Preseason All-Mountain West Team
• Thursday, July 23 – Offensive, Defensive and Special Teams Preseason Players of the Year.

Let’s finish with Monday’s edition of The Lost Season, as we feature St. Pius X Student-Athlete Mason Ashcraft.

“Hi my name is Mason Ashcraft and I am a graduate of the 2020 class from St. Pius X High School. I played baseball and was apart of the state championship team in 2019, which was the greatest feeling ever. I am playing baseball next year at UNM, and I am really excited to get going there. When everything got canceled at the start of COVID I was devastated, just because I knew we couldn’t win another state title and I knew we were going to do this year, especially with the seniors coming back, but I am forever grateful for those memories that I made with those guys on that field and Go Lobos!,” said Ashcraft.