6A state baseball tourney is wide open
Defending softball champ Rio Rancho opens in Carlsbad
The narrative began taking hold sometime in the middle of the season, mostly because there wasn’t a single team taking hold. It goes something like this: “This is the most even field I’ve ever seen, 1 through 16,” Cleveland baseball coach Shane Shallenberger said.
The Class 6A state tournament has an unusual degree of parity this year, as the 16 playoff participants gather for their opening, best-of-3 first-round series.
Consider that the defending champion, Eldorado, is a No. 7 seed, and the Eagles have as much talent as any team in this tournament.
All of the metro area’s top-level 6A teams are home for the first round, starting with No. 1 seed Rio Rancho, which plays host to Alamogordo. All the series have a game today, with Game 2 on Saturday morning, and a Game 3, if necessary, Saturday afternoon.
These first-round series are far from a free pass for the higher seeds. Eldorado last year, for example, was stretched to three games by double-digit seed Deming.
The Eagles’ attempt to repeat has suddenly become a highstakes quest, as longtime head coach Jim Johns earlier this week announced his retirement after 29 seasons as Eldorado’s head coach.
“Best coach in the state,” Johns’ counterpart at Rio Rancho, Ron Murphy, said. If Murphy’s Rams happen to claim the state title, the championship game would be Murphy’s 500th career victory. He is at 495 wins starting this weekend, and only two other men — Johns being one of them — have reached the 500-win plateau.
Nearly all of the top eight seeds have solid front-line pitching. If momentum counts for anything, both La Cueva and Cleveland have an edge. The fourth-seeded Bears have won eight in a row and played fairly stellar baseball during the month of April. The Storm, seeded fifth, have won five in a row, including a victory over Rio Rancho in the regular-season finale last Friday.
La Cueva opens against Mayfield, with Cleveland taking on a possibly sneaky-tough No. 12 Atrisco Heritage.
Volcano Vista, Eldorado and Sandia are seeded 6-8, and all will be tested. No. 11 seed Cibola already has a win over the Hawks as they start their series; No. 10 Hobbs was a state quarterfinalist last year as it comes to Albuquerque to face Eldorado; and District 3 champ Las Cruces, almost surely feeling slighted and angry that it has to travel for the first round to face a third-place team from another district (Sandia), visits the Matadors.
In 5A’s first round, No. 3 seed St. Pius faces Santa Teresa, which have never played each other before. No. 8 Albuquerque Academy, last year’s champ, welcomes Farmington this weekend.
Sandia Prep is out to repeat in 4A, and the Sundevils open at home against New Mexico Military Institute. No. 3 Hope Christian takes on Pojoaque Valley.
SOFTBALL: Softball’s first round is single elimination. La Cueva (2), Volcano Vista (4), Cleveland (5) and Sandia (7) all are at home in 6A; the first three have games today, with the Matadors taking on No. 10 Atrisco Heritage on Saturday morning.
Rio Rancho is the defending champion, and the Rams are at No. 8 Carlsbad tonight.
The selection committee created some lengthy trips for some schools — such as Eldorado, which is at Hobbs, and Piedra Vista, which goes to Lovington — but some first-round matchups won’t cause the visitors to burn much gas, like Mayfield-Las Cruces in 6A and Los Lunas-Belen in 5A.
Los Lunas, Bernalillo and Moriarty are home in the first round. Moriarty is home today, the other two Saturday morning.
Hope Christian, a 3 seed, is the metro’s top hope to advance deep into the 4A bracket.