Los Alamos girls drop to No. 6 in new rankings

The Los Alamos girls soccer team has yet to play a game in the upcoming state tournament, yet the Lady Hilltoppers have already been demoted.

Seeded No. 5 when the Class 5A bracket was released Sunday evening by the New Mexico Activities Association, they were moved down a spot to No. 6 when a second — and later, third — version came out Monday.

The reason was Santa Teresa, the No. 12 seed in the original bracket and the opponent scheduled to visit Los Alamos in this week’s opening round. The NMAA discovered Santa Teresa had to forfeit a match on the season’s final weekend, knocking it down a few notches in the MaxPreps.com rankings used to help seed the state tournament.

Valencia, which was originally left out of the tournament, was then awarded the No. 12 seed through the at-large process by the NMAA selection committee. The forfeit had a ripple effect throughout the entire bracket as eight of the 12 teams were issued different seeds.

The top two, Albuquerque Academy and Aztec, remained the same, but St. Pius jumped from 6 to 3 while Farmington slipped one spot to No. 4.

Los Alamos dropped from 5 to 6 and will now host No. 11 Grants on Saturday morning at Sullivan Field. Alamogordo, which had originally been the 4 seed and given a bye though the first round, was re-seeded No. 5 and will play this weekend against No. 12 Valencia.

Times for all first-round games in the various boys and girls brackets for Classes 1A-4A, 5A and 6A were set Monday. The winners advance into the state quarterfinals on Nov. 2 in Bernalillo.