West Las Vegas secures top seed in 3A softball bracket

The Class 1A/2A and 3A softball brackets were revealed Sunday afternoon, and West Las Vegas claimed the top seed for 3A.

Led by the dynamic hitting duo of Alexis Pacheco and Malie “Moogie” Satete, the Lady Dons finished the 2024 season with a 22-3 record and the District 2-3A title. They await the winner between No. 8 Navajo Prep and No. 9 Santa Fe Indian School, the two-time 3A runner-up, in an opening-round matchup.

Las Vegas Robertson, which defeated the Lady Braves for the state title the past two years, is the fourth seed and will take on either No. 5 Ruidoso or No. 12 Tucumcari. St. Michael’s missed out on the tournament after finishing with a 7-17 record and a 1-11 mark in district play.

Mora was the lone northern school in the 1A/2A bracket, earning the ninth seed, and will take on No. 8 Laguna-Acoma in the first round.

The single-elimination first-round games will be played Wednesday at Rio Rancho Cleveland, and the double-elimination portion of the tournament begins later the same day.

Saturday’s round of thunderstorms and rain impacted two state baseball playoff series in Classes 4A and 5A. Los Alamos, the 11th seed in the 4A bracket, will resume play of its Game 2 matchup with No. 6 Albuquerque Academy in Albuquerque at 2 p.m. Monday after Academy’s field was deluged with rain Saturday.

The game will resume with the Chargers leading 4-2 with one out in the seventh inning, but the Hilltoppers have the bases loaded.

The other game was the 5A firstrounder between No. 11 Los Lunas and No. 6 Volcano Vista, which is coached by Santa Fe High graduate Todd Flores. The teams split the first two games before rain soaked the field and made for unplayable conditions for the elimination game. It will be played at 4 p.m. Monday — the same day Volcano’s seniors take final exams.

The two-day, 36-hole high school golf state tournaments begin Monday with the 1A-3A event taking place at the New Mexico Tech Golf Course in Socorro. St. Michael’s has qualified its boys and girls teams and each will have their players on the course by no later than 10:10 a.m.

There are only 36 girls qualified with team entries from Gateway Christian, Texico, Dexter, East Mountain and host Socorro along with the Lady Horsemen. Also in the field and an individual entry is Santa Fe Prep’s Jazmin Leardsakulphasuk.

There are 41 boys in the tournament. Joining St. Mike’s are individual entries from Santa Fe Prep (William Babcock) and Santa Fe Indian School (Devery Suina). The Horsemen’s top contenders are expected to be Thomas Trujillo and Isaak Jaramillo.

The 4A tournament is being held at the Tamara and China courses at Santa Ana while the 5A event is at Twin Warriors Golf Club. Michael Velasquez-Saiz is the lone player from the Santa Fe area to qualify in the 4A boys and girls events while there are no players from either Capital or Santa Fe High in the 5A tournament.

Last year, it was Bryce Melton who

exploded onto the prep track and field scene for Santa Fe High.

This year, it’s Valin Wittenburg and Severin Kolfer.

Wittenburg was already the top seed in the 400 meters in the state heading into Saturday’s District 5-5A meet, but he went into overdrive. His time of 47.79 seconds not only shattered the school record of 48.10 set by Michael Garcia, but it would set a new 5A standard if he duplicates it at this weekend’s bigschool state meet in Albuquerque.

At the Larry Baca Memorial meet at Los Alamos on May 5, Wittenburg ran the 100 in 10.90, which qualified him for the event and is the eighth-best time in 5A. He also holds the third-best 200 time of 21.80, behind only fellow district foe Frederick Ford (21.76) and Kolfer (21.64).

Even though Wittenburg set a school record, Kolfer’s time of 48.05 is second behind his teammate and he qualified in the 100 with an 11.12.

As for Melton, he posted a 22.01 in the 200 Saturday that officially qualified him for the state meet both on time and by finishing second in the race (top two finishers at district meets automatically qualify for state). The junior, who was plagued by a hamstring injury for most of the season, has the fifth-best time in the 100 at 10.88.

Meanwhile, the girls team was one event away from claiming the 5-5A team title before an army of triple jumpers from Los Lunas intervened. The Demons led 130-125, but the Tigers dominated the triple jump, as they were the only ones to have any competitors in the event with five. The 19 points they accumulated pushed Santa Fe High to second place.

Some follow-up notes from the smallschool track and field meet:

◆ Charli Koseoglu of the Academy for Technology and the Classics scored the most points of any female athlete at the meet with 28 points, but she had plenty of company in Class 2A. Three of the top four individual scorers were from the North: Questa sophomore Alyse Lovato had 21 points on the strength of winning the high and triple jumps, while Escalante’s Ashley Gilmore was fourth with 18 ½ points that included a 100 hurdle title

◆ St. Michael’s boys showed that depth can carry the day on the team side. The highest-scoring Horsemen was distance runner Landen Sandoval, who had just 12 ½ points

◆ Pecos sophomore Brandyn Encinias finally got to view the top of the 2A podium when he led the Panthers medley team to a first-place finish in 3:48.62. He placed second in Friday’s 1,600 and missed out on an 800 title when Laguna-Acoma’s Tagoya Pedro caught him in the final 100 meters to beat him by .98 of a second.

Top-seeded Colorado Mesa won the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference postseason tournament over the weekend, knocking off No. 2 seed Regis in Saturday’s championship game in Grand Junction, Colo. Both teams will make it to the NCAA Division II South Central Region tournament this week.

Neither of the state’s Division II teams is moving on. New Mexico Highlands finished its season 10-40, going 6-26 in the RMAC. Eastern New Mexico went 21-29 and 19-29 in the Lone Star Conference.

For Highlands, the numbers weren’t great, but they were a definite uptick from the program’s 2023 season that produced a 3-47 record. As such, the baseball team was named “most improved” during NMHU’s recent athletics banquet that honored the department’s major accomplishments during the 2023-24 season.

Highlands track and field sprinter Ashley Barrett, who made her mark at the recent RMAC championships, was named both the female freshman and female athlete of the year.

Senior Andrew Amor, who won the conference’s cross-country championships by almost 13 seconds last fall, was named the school’s male senior and athlete of the year. Amor was a threetime All-American and finished fifth in the D2 national championships.

Colorado Rockies outfielder/first baseman Kris Bryant and outfielder Nolan Jones are scheduled for rehab assignments with the Albuquerque Isotopes this week.

The Isotopes open a six-game home series Tuesday against Sugar Land.

Bryant is expected to be on the field Tuesday night while the timeline for Jones is unclear.

Both players suffered lower back injuries early in the season and each has been on the parent club’s injured list since late April.