Top New Mexico sports stories of 2025 (prep)

It was a wonderfully newsy 2025 on New Mexico’s prep sports scene.

Artesia has never won a state football championship the way the Bulldogs did this year, with a humongous 18-point, second-half comeback against rival Roswell, a 25-24 victory that put the school second alone in the country for overall titles (this being the 33rd). Amber Ashcraft achieved her 500th career win (top 10 nationally) as La Cueva’s girls soccer coach, then resigned after the season. New Mexico staged its first-ever outdoor high school volleyball match, as Albuquerque Academy hosted La Cueva. Cleveland football continued its juggernaut-ish behavior with yet another blue trophy in the largest division.

One of my very favorite stories of the year was the tale of Estancia’s Olavio Hernandez, the recipient of the Spirit of Sport Award from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) for the section of the country that includes New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. This is a young man with one leg, who overcame gargantuan odds to become a two-sport athlete for the Bears, in basketball and baseball. Watching him play baseball one afternoon last spring on his home field, his determination brought me to tears.

These were all fantastic stories from the last 12 months. But none of them appear here as I select my top five prep stories of the year. (Geoff Grammer wrote about the top non-high school sports stories of the year in a separate column).

We shall list the top prep stories in reverse order, as it should be. There must be suspense building, after all.

Happy New Year, everyone, and my best wishes for a prosperous and healthy 2026.

5. Share and share alike

Two individuals occupy the fifth spot on my 2025 list.

The first is Jim Ciccarello, the longtime girls track and field coach at La Cueva, who in March was announced as New Mexico’s 10th entry into the NFHS Hall of Fame.

This is the gold standard of prep HOFs.

Later in the year, Ciccarello retired, going out on the ultimate high note.

The other half of this spot belongs to Charlie Vause, a cross-country runner at Rio Rancho High.

At the start of the year, Vause — whose rivalry this year with Organ Mountain’s Corbin Coombs was truly a riveting thing to watch — was named as the Gatorade National Boys Cross Country performer of the year, and only one other athlete in the state’s history had ever received such recognition from Gatorade.

4. A Dunn deal

Several of the summer and autumn months were spent on the saga of New Mexico’s most recruited girls basketball player.

Harper Dunn of Corona announced in the summer that she would be transferring to Albuquerque Academy. But there was a problem in what proved to be an extremely serpentine case: The New Mexico Activities Association was not going to permit her to play for the Academy’s varsity squad.

Dunn appealed to the NMAA multiple times. She was denied at every turn, and it appeared that the 6-foot-6 post was facing the distinct possibility of A) taking this case to an Albuquerque courtroom; or B) not playing a high school junior season in New Mexico.

Ultimately, she was cleared to play for Academy only when her former school in Corona announced it would not have a girls basketball team this season.

3. 24-3 1/4

There were several superb individual athletic achievements this year. Aleah Alvarado of Rio Rancho, who hadn’t hit a single home run all season into late April, hit four of them on a single afternoon against Volcano Vista. Rian Gonzales, a Volcano Vista sharpshooter, set a state record with 17 makes from the 3-point line in a 62-point effort against Piedra Vista.

But if we’re taking everything into context, including a formidable historical perspective, then what happened at the long jump pit at the University of New Mexico Track and Field Complex on the morning of May 16 was the most special.

It was there that La Cueva junior Tanner Montaño — not once, but twice — tied New Mexico’s oldest existing individual overall state record.

David Powdrell of Highland’s mark of 24 feet, 3¼ inches in the long jump had stood alone since 1970. Montaño had been threatening to break this record throughout the spring, and on a Friday morning, on the first day of the 5A state meet, he tied Powdrell’s mark — astonishingly, and almost indescribably, he equaled it exactly. 

He hit the mark once, but it was wind-aided.

A little later, he hit the runway again, and tied Powdrell again, with a legal wind.

Powdrell was there to witness Montaño’s jumps, making for a wonderful full-circle moment.

2. Long, long overdue

This was not the biggest prep story of 2025, but it was my favorite story of 2025.

In May, the Sandia High baseball program won a state championship for the first time since 1980, routing rival Eldorado 13-4 in the final at Santa Ana Star Field.

You’d have to have a full appreciation of Matadors history to gain a clear understanding of how much pain and frustration was purged on that Saturday night.

Several excellent Sandia teams had fallen a game short on the season’s final day, but this particular drought cut so much deeper.

Two of the school’s recent head baseball coaches, Chris Eaton and John Gunther, men who so very much craved a state title for Sandia baseball, had passed away in recent years. John and Chris both had taken the Matadors to a championship game, and those deeply immersed in the metro’s prep baseball scene were thinking of them as Sandia flowed out of its dugout to celebrate this win.

For me, this was the most memorable celebration scene of the calendar year. And as a side note to this story, Marc Hilton became the first member of the coaching fraternity to win state titles with both a 4A program (St. Pius) and a 5A team.

1. Volcano Vista four-ever

New Mexico is filled with ongoing prep dynasties and teams that are currently on lengthy title runs. To name a few: Albuquerque Academy boys tennis, St. Michael’s football, Hope Christian girls soccer (which had an incredible 56-game win streak snapped in October), Cleveland boys track and field. Plenty of other examples, as well.

The Volcano Vista boys basketball program’s Class 5A championship streak — four — isn’t as long as Albuquerque’s two longest streaks in this sport, those being Albuquerque Academy and Hope Christian, private schools that at one time each won six in a row in a smaller classification.

But led by one of the state’s elite players of the 21st century, Kenyon Aguino, the Hawks’ thrilling overtime win over Sandia in the March final capped the greatest four-year run by any Albuquerque team in the state’s largest boys division in the sport, where it is arguably more difficult to sustain dominance than any other sport.

In a basketball-crazed state, that’s saying something. That’s saying it all.

James Yodice covers high school sports for the Journal. You can reach him at jyodice@abqjournal.com.