Girls state basketball tournament preview: Are Hobbs, Sandia, KC and Gallup locks for title games?

James Yodice James Yodice James Yodice Journal Staff Writer

Published March 6, 2025 - 8:08 p.m. Modified March 7, 2025 - 12:10 p.m.

Ladies first.

The nine-day sprint to the end of the 2024-25 girls basketball season tips off Friday with 40 first-round games across the five classifications.

Winners advance to the metro area starting Tuesday, with the Class 5A and 4A quarterfinals at the Pit, and the 2A and 3A quarters at the Rio Rancho Events Center. The 1A quarters are Wednesday at Bernalillo High School.

Class 5A

No. 1 seed Hobbs and No. 2 Sandia, the defending champion, have had significant separation on everyone else from the start of the season.

Piedra Vista’s girls face the longest road trip of any of the 40 traveling teams in the first round. The Panthers will travel a shade under 500 miles, one way, to face Hobbs.

The Eagles lost their opener in Albuquerque on Nov. 23, dropping a 53-48 decision to Sandia. Ironically enough, the Matadors’ only loss also came at Sandia, in the metro semifinals to Kirtland Central. Both Hobbs and Sandia are 26-1.

Sandia senior Audri Wright, center, pushes past two Hobbs players during a Nov. 23 game at Sandia High School. The No. 2 Matadors and No. 1 Eagles are the favorites to reach the girls 5A state championship game.

The Eagles and Matadors are both veteran groups who’ve been together for years. For Hobbs, this includes standouts like Bhret Clay, Brynn Hargrove, Kyndle Cunningham and Nakia Mojica. For Sandia, it’s Sydney Benally, Audri Wright and Hope Giddings.

Sandia opens against Centennial, a team the Matadors beat by 41 in Las Cruces early in the season.

Mayfield, the 3 seed, has only three losses, including one each to Hobbs and Sandia, and the Trojans are possibly the stingiest defensive team in the field, giving up just 35 points a game.

Perhaps the most interesting first-rounder has No. 10 Rio Rancho visiting seventh-seeded Los Lunas. Most of the Rams’ top players, led by freshman guard Madi Martinez (16.3 ppg) are underclassmen, and they have been surging of late. The Tigers are another one of 5A’s relatively young squads, and have won 23 games.

Lori Mabrey, Rio Rancho Girls Basketball — Rio Rancho’s Madi Martinez, right, drives past La Cueva’s Payton Lobato during a Jan. 16 game at La Cueva High School. Both the Rams (seeded 10th) and Bears (seeded sixth) are looking to advance out of the first round of the girls 5A state tournament Friday.

Volcano Vista, which reached the state final last March, is a 9 seed and visiting Clovis. The Hawks beat the Wildcats in Clovis’ tournament championship game just before Christmas, but Volcano has lost two straight and three out of five coming into the playoffs, and have had to navigate their way through the loss of superb guard Mila Espinoza, who was lost for the season with a knee injury at the end of January.

No. 5 Albuquerque High (Carlsbad) and No. 6 La Cueva (Las Cruces) are both home on Friday.

The spirited Bulldogs, and also the Bears, are like Rio Rancho insomuch as virtually all their key contributors are not yet seniors. La Cueva’s terrific junior guard, Jordyn Dyer (20.4 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 3.0 apg) is one of the elite players in this tournament.

Class 4A

Kirtland Central and Gallup have as much outside expectation to reach a state final as any two teams in any bracket.

The Bengals were ranked No. 1 up until the latter half of January. The Broncos, fueled by excellent guard play and a quick group of defenders that gave Gallup’s ball-handlers all sorts of problems, overtook them with two victories in District 1-4A play, by 14 and 25 points.

But Gallup won the last meeting, 73-69 last Saturday in the district tournament final, so the Bengals (26-2), who have a terrific big in senior post Rylie Whitehair, have the momentum. Defending state champion Kirtland Central (26-3), an extraordinarily young group, spent much of its season taking on 5A teams, and went 6-2 against them, with losses to Hobbs and Rio Rancho.

Gallup-Kirtland Central 02082025.8.jpg — Gallup’s Payton Johnson attempts a three-point shot against Kirtland Central’s defense during a Feb. 8 game at Gallup High School. The top-seeded Broncos and the No. 2 Bengals are expected to play again in the girls 4A state championship.

The top 4A threats from the metro area are No. 4 Valencia, No. 6 St. Pius and No. 5 Albuquerque Academy. The Chargers, led by 6-foot junior forward Addie Spratley (16.4 ppg, 6.8 rpg), had a similar seed last year but went out in the first round. Academy is hosting Silver on Friday.

The Sartans are home to Pojoaque Valley as St. Pius tries to get into the state championship game for the second straight postseason.

Valencia is a team to watch in Kirtland’s top half and played the Broncos close in the regular season. The Jaguars have a deep group of guards, led by senior Jadyn Montoya (16.0 ppg). Valencia went 3-0 in the regular season against its first-round opponent, district rival Highland.

Class 3A

The 3A chase revolves around the strong trio from District 2, West Las Vegas, Santa Fe Indian and Robertson, seeded 2-4, trying to make sure No. 1 Navajo Prep doesn’t successfully win a second straight blue trophy.

The Eagles’ road to another appearance in the final could have them facing a couple of district rivals, Wingate or Crownpoint, and Tohatchi, the latter being the team that lost to Navajo Prep in the 2024 title game. The 8-9 game is Crownpoint at Wingate; they split four meetings in the regular season.

The Navajo Prep district, 1-3A, sent six teams to state, and none of the six are seeded lower than No. 9. (The other five are seeded 5-9.)

Class 2A

Tatum (23-5), the No. 1 seed, plays Estancia in the first round on Friday. Oddly enough, this is the first game for the Coyotes this season against a 2A team that’s not in their district.

Albuquerque’s Legacy Academy, seeded 13th, already has three losses to the team the Silverbacks are playing in the first round, district rival Jemez Valley, the 4 seed.

No. 3 Pecos has won 14 out of 15 going into the playoffs and the Panthers might run into No. 2 Mesa Vista in Week 2, and those two opened the season against one another, a close win for the Trojans.

There will be a new 2A state champion as defending champ Peñasco did not qualify this season.

Class 1A

There has not been an undefeated girls state champion since Volcano Vista in 2022. The Roy/Mosquero co-op is 26-0 as the Class 1A postseason begins, and the Blue has been as dominant against its classification as anyone, with an average margin of victory of 39 points. The team has four players who average double figures, led by 5-7 senior Sylviana Baca (13.8).

Defending state champion Fort Sumner/House is seeded second; this co-op was the only 1A team to play Roy/Mosquero within 10 points in the regular season.

The 8-9 pairing is one of the most repeated of the postseason, as No. 8 Des Moines faces Springer. This is the rivals’ fifth meeting of the season; The Demons lost the first game, but have won the last three.

The same type of rivalry exists between No. 4 Quemado and No. 13 Reserve, who are facing one another for the fourth time.

The bottom half of the draw has the possibility of a semifinal game between No. 3 Melrose and Fort Sumner/House. Despite being only 35 miles apart, they are not in the same district.

The best player in the 1A bracket is Corona/Vaughn’s 6-6 sophomore Harper Dunn, who averages about 22 points and 19 rebounds a game.