Hobbs, Carlsbad are on a collision course at state
Powerhouse Southern rivals are top two seeds in 6A girls tournament
For what it’s worth, the girls basketball teams from Hobbs and Carlsbad have combined to win 54 games this season.
Now absorb this: The Eagles and Cavegirls are undefeated against everybody in New Mexico — except each other.
With due respect to their many pursuers, the best basketball in the state was authored by Hobbs and Carlsbad, the top two seeds for the Class 6A state tournament that tips off today.
And yet, these two neighbors — neighbors by southeastern New Mexico standards, anyway — could scarcely be more polar opposite.
“Salt and pepper,” Hobbs coach Joe Carpenter said.
Winning is their common denominator.
The Eagles (27-1) snatched the top seed from the Cavegirls (27-3) by beating them head-tohead three times over an eightday span at the end of the regular season.
Both District 3-6A rivals are expected to head north early next week, where the metro area’s challengers — led by West Mesa — hope to prevent an all-South final.
“I don’t thnk there’s a rivalry,” said Hobbs senior Payton O’Brain of her team and Carlsbad. “We’re just two teams with great athletes. The matchup is always fun with them.”
History is on the side of the North interrupting their march, as it were. Carlsbad’s girls, who fell in the state semis a year ago, have never played in a championship game. Hobbs has won only one blue trophy, in 2003.
“We all (on this team) think we’re the best and that we can win it all,” standout Cavegirl sophomore guard Carsyn Boswell said. “We’ve learned a lot about ourselves and what we’re capable of.”
The whos
Boswell and Hobbs junior guard Amaya Lewis — both 5-foot-8 — have helped propel their teams to dizzying heights. Lewis averages more than 17 points a game for Hobbs, Boswell 19.7 points a game for the Cavegirls.
Carlsbad was 25-0 this season before it lost a game. The Cavegirls are uncommonly tall — they’ve got three girls who stand at least 6-feet-1 — the best of the lot being 6-1 senior Kim Best. Another three go 5-11.
The Hobbs girls, who were 12-14 last season, play much like the Hobbs boys. Fast and furious.
“We’ve got a lot of size. They’ve got a lot of speed,” Carlsbad coach John Lee Zumbrun said. “They get us playing faster than we want to play.”
Both head coaches have Hobbs roots.
Carpenter, 46, was once a baseball recruit of Ray Birmingham when Birmingham was the coach at the College of the Southwest in Hobbs and Carpenter was a middle infielder at El Paso Hanks.
He is a former JV girls coach at Hobbs who was a finalist for the Hobbs varsity opening at the start of this century. He lost out to his friend Johnny Casaus, who retired after last season with the Eagles.
Carpenter, whose wife’s family lived in Hobbs, went instead to Roswell High, where he coached the Lady Coyotes to four championship games — and one title, last March — in 16 seasons.
“I value what a state championship is all about,” he said. “I’ve had the No. 1 team at state and lost. Not always the best team wins state. All the stars have to align.”
When Casaus stepped down, Carpenter was the natural choice to fill that void. He now has a rare opportunity to win state two years in a row at different schools in different cities in different classes.
“We thought we’d be successful, but to be honest, we didn’t know. We thought we could be a top-eight seed and get a home game, based off the summer. But then things really started falling into place. The kids became sponges. It was a combination of good athletes and a system that fit us,” Carpenter said.
The hows
Lewis’ father once played for Billy Tubbs at Oklahoma, so she understands what it is to get up and down the floor.
“It’s really fun to play fastpaced,” Lewis said. “Coach makes us play faster. We’re always pressing a lot.”
Junior guard Kiara Knight leads Hobbs in 3-pointers, and O’Brain, the only senior in the starting lineup, has the size of a post but will also step out and shoot from the outside.
In 6A, only West Mesa and Sandia average more points per game than does Hobbs.
“We feel good about the state tournament, about the position we’re in,” Carpenter said. “If we play to our potential, someone will have to beat us.”
Said O’Brain: “We’re pretty confident and we’re motivated and excited to see what we can do for the remainder of the season.”
As for Zumbrun, he also is a former assistant at Hobbs under Casaus. He is in his ninth season coaching the Cavegirls.
“At Hobbs, we considered Carlsbad the sorriest program in America,” Zumbrun said. “But there were kids starving to play basketball here at Carlsbad.”
Zumbrun felt strongly that whatever program he instituted, it had to be constructed on the integrity of his athletes, and that the on-court basketball progressions would be seen soon enough. And he was right.
“We like to win,” he said, “but it’s not more important than character, and that’s the emphasis all the time with our kids.”
Two Carlsbad seniors — Best and Kaysha Montoya — didn’t win a game in middle school, Zumbrun said. This season, for the first time, Carlsbad’s freshmen won their Border Conference, a league that includes Hobbs, Artesia, Lovington, Clovis, Roswell and Goddard. (This would be much the same template the state might implement at the varsity level starting with the 2018-19 season.)
Aside from Best and Boswell, Carlsbad girls aren’t involved in AAU, Zumbrun said — only summer work with their high school teammates. Part of the trick, Zumbrun said, was getting them “to believe in something bigger than themselves.”
He has built strong roots with young girls in the community — a “mascot” program for grades 3-6 created to foster excitement and interest in becoming future Cavegirls, and Zumbrun works with them in the gym once a week. Boswell used to be a mascot.
“It’s awesome, just knowing that you’re a part of it,” said Best.
“People see that love,” said junior point guard Mariel Gomez, “and they want to be a part of it.”
Whatever happens this week and next, Zumbrun sounded sure about the Cavegirls’ future.
“We don’t expect this to stop,” he said.