Champions!
Lady Eagles pull away from Rio Rancho for state title
PETER STEIN/NEWS-SUN
ALBUQUERQUE – The Hobbs girls basketball team is in the business of contending for state championships. It’s what they do, how they roll. Like a fast food joint churning out hamburgers, the Lady Eagles serve up title contenders on a regular basis.
Winning a state title is not always easy, though. So when Hobbs pulled away from Rio Rancho for a 66-53 victory in Saturday’s state 5A championship game at The Pit in Albuquerque, it was a big deal, like it always is when the Lady Eagles earn themselves a blue trophy.
“I think people doubted us,” Hobbs head coach Joe Carpenter said. “I know that’s cliché, but when you lose seven seniors as good as the ones we had, it says a lot.”
The new mix of players began paving the road toward a state championship last offseason in summer ball.
“May 20 was when these kids started playing,” Carpenter said, “and today was the culmination of it.”
“I think we have a lot of grit,” Hobbs senior Matysen Zepeda said. “And we just keep putting in the work. We just fight adversity as a team, and have each other’s backs every day.”
Saturday’s victory secured the program’s first state championship since 2023. But despite the 13-point final difference, this title was in doubt until well into the fourth quarter. Hobbs trailed 25-23 at halftime, with a buzzer-beating turnaround bank shot by Rio Rancho’s Madi Martinez supplying the difference.
“We felt like we were missing a lot of shots and not taking care of all the fundamentals in the first half,” Carpenter said. “We just wanted to get going, get a run going.”
With just over a minute gone by in the third quarter, Kareli Rivera hit a runner while drawing a foul. When she sank the and-one, the Lady Eagles had snuck into a 26-25 lead as 6:59 remained in the third.
After a trey attempt by Rio Rancho’s Larissa Martinez spun out, Hobbs headed back the other way, and Zepeda hit a floater that stretched the Lady Eagles’ lead to 28-25. The Lady Rams came right back with a Madi Martinez layup and closed to within 28-27, but Zepeda came right back with a bucket that made it 30-27, beginning a stretch of three straight Hobbs possessions that ended with a score. Rivera added a fast-break layup on the next Lady Eagles possession, and she followed with a steal and one-handed basket on the possession after that, drawing a foul in the process and sinking the free throw to make it a 35-27 game with 5:06 to play in the third. In less than two minutes’ time, Hobbs had turned a one-point lead to seven points.
A minute after Rivera’s three-point play, Kacelynn Muniez hit one of two free throw attempts, increasing the Hobbs lead to 36-27 and wrapping up an 8-0 Lady Eagles run, a 13-2 overall run since the start of the second half.
“They’re just relentless,” Rio Rancho head coach Lori Mabrey said. “They kept coming at us and coming at us and coming at us.”
Rio Rancho was relentless, too. The Lady Rams then pieced together a 7-0 run of their own and closed to within 36-34. That score held until 2:12 remained in the third quarter, when Xoey Ross went to the line and calmly sank a pair of free throws, bumping Hobbs’ lead to 38-34. A left-corner trey from Muniez made it 41-34 with under two minutes to go, and after a pair of free throws by Rio Rancho’s Jemmah Estrada, Ross nailed a rightside trey and stretched Hobbs’ lead to 44-36.
It was down to 44-39 by the end of the third quarter, back up to 47-39 on a smooth right-arc trey from Zepeda early in the fourth, but then down to 47-41 on an Estrada bank shot, and 47-43 after a Larissa Martinez steal led to a Madi Martinez layup.
But Hobbs came right back with a driving basket from Rivera to make it a 49-43 game. Ross then interrupted Rio Rancho’s next possession by plucking a midcourt steal on the UNM Lobo logo and driving for a layup, increasing the lead to eight.
Rio Rancho’s next possession ended with a defensive rebound by Zaylee Hardison, and the Hobbs possession Hardison created ended with a turnaround flip-in by Muniez, making it a double-digit game (53-43) for the first time of the afternoon, with roughly five and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter.
Hobbs was up 57-48 later in the fourth, when Rio Rancho made one last run, getting five straight points on a Madi Martinez lay-in and a right-corner trey from Larissa Martinez, narrowing the gap to just four points.
“I thought our girls battled,” Mabrey said. “I thought that Hobbs knew they were in a game with us; we played them closer than anybody (in the state tournament).”
But after Larissa Martinez’s three, Rivera scored four straight points – on a layup and leftside jumper – to make it 61-53. And Muniez hit a layup on the Lady Eagles’ next possession, giving them a 63-53 cushion with just 1:15 to go. From then on, it was just about holding steady for Hobbs until the end.
“We just wanted to take care of the ball,” Carpenter said. “We wanted to utilize the clock.”
Soon, the Lady Eagles had won a state championship, their third this decade.
As a side bonus, Muniez finished the game with four treys, putting her at 94 this season, good for fourth all time in NMAA single-season three-pointers.
But the most important achievement Saturday was Hobbs’ state championship, following Metro Tournament and District 4-5A titles this season. Only the Hobbs Holiday Tournament title slipped away from the Lady Eagles, but perhaps that was lucky, if you believe in that sort of thing. The last season prior to this one that the Lady Eagles didn’t win the Holiday Tournament was 2022-23, which was also the last season prior to this one that they won a state championship.
Christmas came a little late for Hobbs this season. And now they can enjoy the gift they earned – a state championship.
