5A boys: Favorites all advance … with one exception

For the second night in a row, a 12 seed crashed the Class 5A state basketball tournament party.

Saturday night, it was the Farmington Scorpions, who had the longest road trip of any boys team in any of the five classes, but who upset Organ Mountain in the first round.

All the other seeds in the top eight moved into Wednesday’s quarterfinals at the Pit: Volcano Vista, Hobbs, Sandia, Roswell, Albuquerque High, Cleveland and La Cueva.

The quarters look this way: Roswell-Farmington, AHS-Sandia, Hobbs-Cleveland and, in the late game, Volcano Vista-La Cueva.

No. 8 LA CUEVA 65, No. 9 CIBOLA 56: The Bears (19-10) trailed in this game for only 19 seconds, but still had to splice together an excellent second half to eliminate the Cougars (18-11).

Junior forward Hunter Butler scored half of his 14 points in the fourth quarter for La Cueva, including five straight for a 51-42 lead with 5½ minutes to go.

“We’ve been kind of riding him,” Bears coach Eric Orell said. “He hasn’t been playing his best the last few games, but he got buckets and rebounds when they were really needed.”

La Cueva was not firmly on anyone’s radar early in the year, but the Bears have been mostly stellar the second half.

“We started 0-4, losing to teams that objectively we shouldn’t have lost to,” Butler said. “We’re starting to beat better teams.”

La Cueva avenged a close loss to Cibola in the regular season. The Bears started quick with the first nine points, including an opening 3-pointer by Drew Bramlett and a three-point play from Tony Trujillo.

Cibola scored the final six of the first half and finally pulled even at 26 by halftime.

“We had to get rebounds, that’s what let them back into the game in the second quarter,” Orell said. “We knew they wouldn’t go away. We had to match their physicality, and I thought we matched it in the second half.”

Cibola grabbed its first lead, 38-37, late in the third quarter. La Cueva would score the final five of the quarter, including another three-point play by Trujillo, for a 46-40 edge headed to the fourth. Butler’s work inside was hugely important for the Bears in the final eight minutes.

Trujillo led the Bears with 17 points. La Cueva lost 69-48 to Volcano Vista in early December.

Elijah Martinez scored 32 for Cibola to lead everyone. He tried valiantly to keep the Cougars close in the fourth quarter, and largely succeeded with several 3s, the last of them with 1:57 to go and leaving La Cueva clinging to a 57-55 lead.

Maddox Taylor for the Bears converted two free throws, then a short bucket near the rim, for a 61-55 lead with 1:20 left and Cibola was out of steam.

— James Yodice

No. 7 CLEVELAND 91, No. 10 ATRISCO HERITAGE 75: In Rio Rancho, a fast start didn’t materialize into much for the Jaguars (19-11) as they fell to the Storm (19-10) in the Round of 16. Cleveland next faces Hobbs, a team the Storm beat in the metro area two months ago in Rio Rancho.

Atrisco Heritage jumped out to a 7-0 lead that left the Storm reeling. But Storm junior point guard Remy Albrecht found his groove and the game quickly flipped.

“I played alright. Some of my shots fell,” said a modest Albrecht, who had 25 points. “The key was to stop (Jaguars’ leading scorer Latavious Morris) and that’s what we did.”

Morris finished the night with 16 points.

It wasn’t long before the Storm heated up from distance.

Ajay Vigil started it. He hit three from beyond the arc in the first half. Albrecht followed that with two of his own. A seven-point lead for the Jaguars quickly evaporated and by halftime the score was 41-35 Cleveland.

But the real damage from the arc came in the second half from Cleveland’s Brycen Bowie.

“This is (Bowie’s) night. He was incredible,” Albrecht said.

Bowie nailed eight three-pointers in the win, including seven in the second half.

“I feel like we, as a team, played amazing,” Bowie said. “It was just my night. I was hitting everything and my teammates kept finding me.”

By the end of the night, Vigil had hit six three-pointers of his own.

— Taylor Hood, Rio Rancho Observer

No. 1 VOLCANO VISTA 75, No. 16 WEST MESA 40: At Volcano Vista, senior forward Kenyon Aguino scored a game-best 27 points as the Hawks (26-2) had no difficulty getting past the Mustangs (16-13).

Sophomore forward David Lunn added 16 points and went over 1,000 career points already for Volcano Vista.

No. 3 SANDIA 71, No. 14 RIO RANCHO 51: At Sandia, Zaire Ndyabagye led the Matadors (25-3) with 24 points as Sandia pulled away in the second half to eliminate the Rams (15-13).

Isaiah Brown added 16 points for Sandia, as the Matadors get ready to face the team — Albuquerque High — that eliminated them in the state quarterfinals 12 months ago.

No. 6 ALBUQUERQUE HIGH 72, No. 11 SANTA FE 49: At Bulldog City, junior forward Ethan Oetzel had a team-best 24 points as the Bulldogs (22-6) won every quarter and gradually pulled away from the Demons (19-10).

Ali Mireles added 14 points for AHS, which is meeting Sandia in the quarterfinals for the second straight March.

ALSO SATURDAY: Senior forward Mikey Beck had 19 points and seven rebounds for Farmington, as the Scorpions (20-10) traveled to Las Cruces and took out fifth-seeded Organ Mountain (23-6), which was in the 5A state final last year. … No. 2 Hobbs (25-4) beat Las Cruces 63-54, and No. 4 Roswell (23-7) will face Farmington next after the Coyotes ousted rival Carlsbad 58-49.