By Eric Butler
MaxPreps.com
Basketball: Teams Earn Spots in Quarterfinals
In the opening round of the Class 4A and 5A playoffs over the past weekend, on only eight occasions did a road team come out with a victory. Three of those times, it was a west side Albuquerque team that did the winning and each had to travel to southern New Mexico to do it.
Both of the St. Pius squads, boys and girls, earned berths in the state quarterfinals while Rio Grande's boys also stayed alive.
But the biggest upset came in the Duke City when Alamogordo (12-13), the 14th-seed in the girls Class 5A bracket, bounced out third-seeded Sandia, 51-48, Friday (March 2).
The Tigers earned their first trip to the state quarterfinals in 15 years.
"We were just real happy just to get into the tournament," Alamogordo coach Gary Chapman said. "We knew we had a good team, we just hadn't quite put it all together."
Alamogordo has only two seniors on the team while Sandia (23-4) played the game without a pair of critical players. Both Kendra Coveal and Jane Kanyinda suffered recent knee injuries and missed the game with the Tigers.
"But they were still a good squad," Chapman noted. "You don't win 23 ballgames with just two people."
For the St. Pius boys, victory was somewhat expected since the Sartans entered as the sixth-seed and were traveling to play at 11th-seeded Santa Teresa - who got the home game by virtue of having won its own district.
The Sartans did end up beating the Desert Warriors, 73-63, Saturday (March 3) by pulling away in the third quarter. St. Pius (13-13) led 29-28 at half, but repeatedly went to post player Chris Johansen in the second half to start opening a gap. Johansen finished with 32 points whil Paul Jessen added 17 for St. Pius.
"I tell you what, Santa Teresa played very, very hard. They got to a ton of loose balls and got lots of offensive rebounds," St. Pius boys coach Damian Segura said. "They were making a lot of hustle plays we didn't make. And they had a pretty excited and vocal crowd behind them."
St. Pius, the defending 4A champs, will play against old district foe Espanola Valley on Wednesday night at The Pit.
"A few of those guys were sophomores the last time we saw them and they've grown into some pretty darn good players," Segura added.
The Sartans girls, also defending state champions, traveled to Deming on Friday night and responded with a 63-56 win over the Wildcats. Ninth-seeded St. Pius (19-9) got 20 points from guard Agnes Gallegos, 16 from sophomore Alex Membreno and 12 more from Andrea Salas to pull off the victory over eighth-seeded Deming.
The road team took the Wildcats crowd out of the equation early by running out to a 12-2 lead to start the game.
"They did make a great run at us in the end though. We were up 16 and they actually cut the lead to four," St. Pius girls coach Phil Griego said. "But our kids responded really, really nicely."
Rio Grande (15-14) pulled off the biggest road upset by knocking off sixth-seeded Las Cruces, 83-82, in the Class 5A boys playoffs. The 11th-seeded Ravens did it in extraordinary fashion when Gabe Sanchez drained a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 3.7 seconds remaining. Rio Grande came back from a ten-point deficit, with only six minutes to go, to earn its place in the quarterfinals.
"It was huge. We've lost so many close games this year," said Ravens coach Wally Salata, whose team will play district rival Manzano at The Pit on Wednesday. "It makes up for a little bit of what we went through."
Baseball and Softball: Season Opening Notables
A Saturday doubleheader afforded the Valley baseball team a chance to bounce back from a season-opening 7-6 loss to Cibola earlier in the week. And, against visiting Mayfield, one of the Vikings' hurlers had an opportunity go get involved in a battle of pitching aces.
It turned out that Valley junior Ryan Reynolds made the most of that chance as he led the Vikes to a 2-1 victory over the Trojans and their ace pitcher. Mayfield's Gera Sanchez was named the Gatorade state player of the year last year after going 10-0 from the mound, but it was Reynolds who got the win when Valley pushed across a run in the bottom of the seventh.
In that inning, Marcos Griego led off the frame with a double. When Valley sophomore Ben Swisher singled between first and second, Griego scored to give the Vikings the victory. In the nightcap, seventh-ranked Valley (2-1) then routed the fifth-ranked Trojans 17-4 to complete the twinbill sweep.
"He (Reynolds) gave up only five hits, struck out six and didn't walk anybody," said Valley coach Chad Kuhn, noting that his ace also had some good stats last year as well. "Ryan had the second-best ERA in the state last year. It was a real pitchers duel."
In softball action, Cibola (3-0) stayed unbeaten by sweeping Manzano 9-0 and 4-0 on Saturday. Cougars' sophomore pitcher Misy Martinez threw four innings of shutout ball in the opener and hurled a complete-game victory in the second. Fellow soph Lataima Eltsosie did her share too as she slammed a triple in the first game and also pitched three innings without giving up a hit.
In Farmington, the host Scorpions won their own tournament by knocking off St. Pius 7-2 in the finale of an eight-team invitational.
St. Pius had routed Shiprock 10-0 to start the tourney and then beat perennial Class 5A power Rio Rancho 7-2 in the semifinals. But it was 4A nemesis Farmington that halted the Sartans' run.
"They (the Scorpions) are a good hitting team, they really are, but we had four errors - that really helped them too," said St. Pius coach Mark Rhoten, who was pleased with his squad's showing to start the year. "I like going up and playing good teams right away."