Long day for Lady Braves, Lady Dons

It could be a long Wednesday of softball for the Santa Fe Indian School Lady Braves and the West Las Vegas Lady Dons.

Hopefully, it won’t be as long a night for the Mora Rangers, unlike last May.

SFIS and West Las Vegas each start the day at 10:30 a.m. with a Class 4A State Tournament opening round game at Rio Rancho Cleveland. The Lady Braves, the fifth seed in the tournament, take on No. 12 Hatch Valley, while the No. 7 Lady Dons play No. 10 Albuquerque Hope Christian. If SFIS and West Las Vegas win, they will secure one more day to their season.

They would advance to the double-elimination portion of the bracket, in which the Lady Braves play No. 4 Las Vegas Robertson at 2:30 p.m. for a spot in the semifinals. At the same time, the Lady Dons would take on No. 2 Bernalillo.

Whoever fails to advance to the 4A semifinals moves into the loser’s bracket for a 4:30 p.m. matchup. The SFIS/Robertson loser would face the winner of the No. 9 Navajo Prep/No. 8 Shiprock game or No. 1 Silver. The Lady Dons/Lady Spartans loser gets either the No. 6 Portales/No. 11 East Mountain winner or No. 3 Portales.

In Class 5A, the Los Alamos Lady Hilltoppers face a similar path. Their day starts at 8:30 a.m. with a game against Aztec in a 10-7 matchup. The winner plays at 12:30 p.m. against No. 2 Lovington in a quarterfinal. The loser of that contest heads to a 4:30 p.m. loser’s bracket game against the No. 11 Bloomfield/No. 6 Alamogordo winner or No. 3 Valencia.

BASEBALL

The Class 1A/2A State Baseball Tournament also gets underway Wednesday, and the North’s lone representative, No. 2 Mora, gets the 7 p.m. game against No. 7 Dora at Rio Rancho High School. Last year, the Rangers had to overcome a 12-3 third-inning deficit against Magdalena in the 5-4 matchup before winning 13-12 to reach the semifinals.

The game didn’t end until 11:30 p.m. and depleted Mora’s pitching. It finally came to a head in the semifinal game against No. 1 Lordsburg, which scored 12 runs in the seventh inning to secure a 21-6 win.

If Mora gets past the Coyotes, it would take on either No. 6 Jemez Valley or No. 3 Melrose in the semis at 1 p.m. Thursday.