Prep notes: Santa Fe High hires new football coach

Santa Fe High School last week hired its new head football coach.

Adrian Gonzales, 42, a Las Vegas, New Mexico native who was the Demons’ offensive coordinator the past two seasons, has been promoted to head coach, the school announced last week.

He was the head coach at West Las Vegas from 2014-22. At Santa Fe, he replaces Andrew Martinez who resigned last November in the midst of a hazing scandal within the program.

“You know, I thought the foundation had been set,” Gonzales said. “It’s a good foundation to build on. It’s about changing the mentality and mindset.”

The Demons struggled to a 2-8 record last season, losing their final eight games.

“I think we were prone to doing a bunch of little things wrong,” Gonzales said. “That’s where we have to start.”

Gonzales said he wasn’t necessarily eager to become a head coach again, but this opportunity presented itself, and he wanted to continue with the young kids he had when he started as a coordinator.

“Where we’re at is, we have to get a lot stronger. That’s my focus right now,” he said. “In order to compete in this classification, we have to get stronger, physically and mentally.”

PINK OUT: The girls basketball teams from Cleveland and Rio Rancho are staging two “PINK OUT” games this month.

The first of the two games is Wednesday night at Rio Rancho. The second game is Feb. 20 at Cleveland.

Fans of both teams are being asked to wear pink in support of bringing awareness to all forms of cancer. And in fact, this cause hits particularly hard at Rio Rancho.

Aryanna Bustillos, a senior guard for the Rams, is a thyroid cancer survivor. Rio Rancho will be selling “Fight Cancer” T-shirts on Wednesday night, for $15. A portion of the proceeds are going to the Children’s Cancer Fund of New Mexico in honor of Bustillos.

THE THOUSAND CLUB: Del Norte High senior guard Bleona Agushi is the latest metro-area girl to achieve 1,000 career points.

She’s averaging about 17 points a game this season for the Knights.

Other girls who have reached the 1,000-point plateau include West Mesa’s Monique Sena, who reached that milestone last month, plus La Cueva’s Jordyn Dyer and Volcano Vista’s Mila Espinoza, who both reached 1,000 career points late last year.

If you know of an athlete who’s reached 1,000 career points, drop a note to sports@abqjournal.com.

STATE BASKETBALL PASSES/SCHEDULE: The New Mexico Activities Association is selling state tournament passes. They will be sold only over the phone, with no in-person sales.

To get a pass, call the NMAA at 505-923-3110.

Meanwhile, the schedule for the 2025 postseason looks familiar in terms of the 10 championship games.

The first three title games are Friday, March 14, Class 3A girls, 2A girls and 4A girls, starting at 3, 5 and 7 p.m., respectively.

The other seven are to be played on March 15. The Class 5A girls are going at 2 p.m., followed by the 4A boys at 4 p.m.

The Class 5A boys, as always, ends the season, with an 8 p.m. tip-off.