Prep baseball, softball teams learn their playoff fates

The Class 5A state baseball and softball brackets will go through La Cueva and Centennial. The Bears and Hawks are the No. 1 seeds in 5A for the two-week sprint to the finish of the 2025 season.

BASEBALL: La Cueva, the defending state champion, opens against Las Cruces. That is one of eight best-of-3 series in the opening round that will be played Friday and Saturday.

Rio Rancho, which won twice in two days to end the regular season and clinch the District 1-5A title, is seeded No. 2. Carlsbad and Cleveland round out the top four.

Easily the most intriguing first-round 5A series is the one between No. 8 Volcano Vista and No. 9 Los Lunas, who are meeting in this round for the second straight year. Last year’s series ended with a heated and controversial Game 3, won by the Tigers on the West Side.

Cleveland (last year’s runner-up), Eldorado at No. 5 and Sandia at No. 6 all will be hosting. The Storm take on Mayfield. The Eagles — at home for a postseason game for the first time in nine years — face Organ Mountain, and the Matadors play Piedra Vista.

No. 10 Rio Grande (Centennial) and Cibola (Carlsbad), a dangerous 14 seed, are on the road.

Artesia lost a tough state final in 4A last May to Grants. The Bulldogs are the No. 1 seed, followed by St. Pius, Albuquerque Academy and Belen.

Grants was assigned a 7 seed, so the Pirates could match up with district rival St. Pius in the quarterfinals. The Sartans, who first have to deal with Kirtland Central, won two close games against Grants in the regular season.

The Chargers are at home against Lovington, and Belen is home against Chaparral.

The 8-9 game pairs district rivals No. 8 Valley and No. 9 Hope Christian. Valley won two of three against the Huskies in the regular season, and all were close and low scoring.

East Mountain is the No. 2 seed in the Class 3A bracket, behind only New Mexico Military Institute. NMMI and East Mountain are in the same district. Defending champion Robertson is next at No. 3.

Sandia Prep, the 9 seed, will visit Cobre in a first-round series. The top four seeds in the 12-team 3A bracket have byes through to the Week 2 quarterfinals.

There is no longer a co-op between Menaul and Oak Grove Classical Academy in Class 2A. That combo won state a year ago. But Oak Grove navigated just fine on its own, with a No. 7 seed. Eunice, which was beaten by the co-op in the title game last year, is seeded No. 1.

The top seed in Class 1A is Magdalena, which hasn’t been to a championship game in baseball since 1990.

SOFTBALL: Centennial, La Cueva, Cibola and Carlsbad are hosting the first two rounds. There are four four-team pods. For example, Centennial will meet Eldorado in the first round, and also in Las Cruces, No. 8 Los Lunas faces No. 9 Atrisco Heritage, with the Jaguars being one of the season’s pleasant surprises.

The losers are eliminated. The winners play in Game 3 of that pod, and both teams will advance to Week 2. In short, Week 2 in the metro area will feature four teams without a loss and four teams with a single loss.

Joining No. 2 La Cueva in Albuquerque are No. 15 Organ Mountain, No. 7 Piedra Vista and No. 10 Las Cruces. At Cibola, the Cougars are hosting No. 14 Albuquerque High, No. 6 Alamogordo and No. 11 Rio Rancho.

There are six metro-area schools in the 4A field, none seeded higher than No. 9 St. Pius. Also qualifying were Belen at 10, Bernalillo at 11, Albuquerque Academy at 13, Moriarty at 14 and Valencia at 16. Valencia will be in the four-team pod with top- seeded Silver.

Artesia, Lovington and Aztec also will be the hosts for a four-team pod.

Dexter (3A) and Estancia (1A-2A) were the other No. 1 seeds.