Remembering the fallen: Sandia’s win stirs emotions

My annual school year-ender column is on the menu next weekend. All-Metro baseball and softball in a couple of weeks. Our metro Athletes of the Year — overall and in the individual sports — will be along in early June.

For now, let’s reflect on a memorable 11 days of spring sports state tournaments.

JOHNANDCHRIS: Maybe others were also of a similar mind as I was as the Sandia Matadors poured out of their dugout Saturday night and celebrated a state baseball championship.

There were two men who I couldn’t help but think about as Sandia ended a 45-year title drought: John Gunther and Chris Eaton. John died in March of 2017. Chris died in 2022. They each coached Sandia baseball.

And both these men during their time coaching Sandia spoke passionately and repeatedly to me about wanting to deliver to the Matadors community a baseball championship. They each got close — Gunther twice took Sandia to the state finals, and Eaton did once, in 2022, when these current Matadors were freshmen.

“Coach Eaton, it was so much bigger than baseball to him,” said Matadors senior shortstop Adriel Figueroa-Brito. “I loved that man to death.”

JAMES YODICE

Of the Journal

“Chris was a big part of me,” said senior Damon McRee, the winning pitcher in Saturday night’s final against Eldorado. “He was a big part of everyone at Sandia.”

Neither John nor Chris lived long enough to see Saturday night’s joyous sight, and that hurts my heart. Many other hearts, too.

“It was inspiring for me to carry on their legacy in that way,” Sandia coach Marc Hilton said. “That was one of my biggest goals, was to come here and do that.”

Oh, how John and Chris would have loved that moment of celebration Saturday night.

And, I like to think they did.

HIGHLIGHTSANDDROUGHTS:

The spring’s two most formidable dynasties kept right on winning this year.

Cleveland boys track, with nine blue trophies in a row, is the largest of the beasts in Class 5A athletics. You’ll not talk me down from that.

Albuquerque Academy’s boys tennis program, now with 22 consecutive titles – it is borderline ridiculous to even write such a thing – has inched closer to the all-time national record. (The record is 26, according to the NFHS.)

Academy’s girls tennis program has won six in a row. La Cueva boys tennis, too.

St. Michael’s track and field extended championship streaks to six (boys) and five (girls).

Mesilla Valley’s boys golf program next spring will begin as a four-time defending state champion.

Sandia’s baseball drought was only barely the longest one broken in baseball. In fact, four of the five winners ended a very long gap between titles. Santa Rosa’s in 2A was the first for the Lions in 44 years.

Artesia hadn’t won state in 25 years before Saturday. Magdalena’s last championship in baseball came in 1990.

Centennial softball was a perfect 30-0 in winning the 5A crown, and the Hawks proved unstoppable and unflappable.

One of my favorite anecdotes is this one: The Corley sisters – Ivana, Carmen, Vivica and Vianca – now all are state champions in both singles and doubles for Eldorado. Vivica won a 5A doubles title with Vianca earlier this month; Vivica was the last of the four to earn a first-place doubles medal.

Annie Yost of Piedra Vista shot 9-under par to win 5A girls golf, including a 7-under 66 in the second round. That easily was the round of the year shot by any girl and one of the top individual performances of 2024-25.

Corbin Coombs of Organ Mountain was superb as he won the 3,200, 1,600 and 800 last weekend at state track. To watch this kid kick over the final 100 meters in all three of these races was to be in awe, and he wowed the crowds, to be sure.

Same with Haden Judd of Logan, who had a perfect, 35-point Class 1A meet the previous week.

No athlete was under more of a magnifying glass than La Cueva junior Tanner Montaño. And he delivered. He tied the existing overall state record in the long jump (24 feet, 3¼ inches), a mark that had been owned alone by David Powdrell for 55 years. Montaño tied it twice, once on his first attempt in prelims (wind aided), once on his first attempt in the finals (not wind aided).

ATRACKPOSTSCRIPT: A reader early Sunday morning emailed me, noting that John Chapel, a shot putter from New Mexico Military Institute, is actually the person with the oldest track and field record.

This requires some explaining.

Montaño’s long jump on Friday tied the OVERALL state long jump record. Chapel indeed has a shot put record that dates to 1961; however, it is not the overall record, it is the Class 4A record.

There are several such marks on the books on the New Mexico Activities Association website, which charts the records, that pre-date David Powdrell’s 1970 long jump.

But they are classification records, not the overall record.

With Powdrell being tied – and Montaño still has a year to get the record to himself – it is worth noting that next-oldest overall individual record in track and field belongs to Sandia’s Fred Mady (shot put; 1983).

THESWINGOFTHINGS: The two Class 5A state individual state golf champions, Payton Black of Rio Rancho and Annie Yost of Piedra Vista, strangely enough share the same swing coach.

It is Yost’s father, Tom. Which added some extra spice to both his pupils being medalist at this year’s state tournament in Farmington.

Black and Yost began working together about five years ago, and he travels to Farmington every couple of months to work with Yost. Most of the rest of the time, their consultations are done long distance via video.

“These kids, they are the hardest workers,” Tom Yost said. “I just offer guidance. They put in all the work. I tweak here and there.”

Yost said he and Black’s father, Jason, the Rio Rancho boys coach, “have been friends for a long time. I just offered my services one day. … It has worked out great.” ANDFINALLY: I noted this in my story several days back: Los Lunas’ baseball upset of No. 1 La Cueva – stunningly, the ninth-seeded Tigers overcame a 6-0 deficit; or, should that be stunningly, the Bears blew a 6-0 lead? – in the 5A quarterfinals was easily the upset of the year in that sport.

But I also assert here that no sport produced an upset of this caliber the entire school year, regardless of season, classification, sport or gender.

On the off chance I’ve missed one (or more), lemme know if you have a candidate that rivals this. I’m genuinely curious.

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