State Volleyball Tournaments Start Thursday, November 14-Las Cruces, Centennial, Santa Teresa and Mesilla Valley Christian travel to Rio Rancho

Las Cruces, Santa Teresa and Mesilla Valley Christian all finished atop their respective districts with an unblemished district record.

A Las Cruces Digest Report

Four local teams competing in three different classes will be representing our broader community at the 2024 NMAA State Volleyball Championships. Las Cruces, Santa Teresa and Mesilla Valley Christian all finished atop their respective districts with an unblemished district record. The defending 5A champion Bulldawgs have yet to lose a match. In fact, they have lost a total of only three sets for the entire season.

Despite the phenomenal play of the Las Cruces Bulldawgs, the MaxPreps rankings has them ranked 2nd to Rio Rancho’s Cleveland High School. Las Cruces High School avoided any systemic bias in tournament seeding by winning a head-to-head match with Cleveland earlier in the season, thus precluding the need to rely on the MaxPreps algorithm. Las Cruces Digest would like to take this opportunity to highlight an apparent bias in the MaxPreps algorithm–a bias favoring northern schools and schools from highly populated areas. The New Mexico Activities Association uses the results of this algorithm when determining seeding for state-level tournaments. This bias results in the potential for unfavorable seedings (or possibly omission from selection, altogether) for teams not from Albuqerque and the highly populated surrounding areas.

Class 5A Tournament

Two area teams were seeded in the Class 5A State Volleyball Championship: Las Cruces High School and Centennial High School.

Las Cruces High School earned a first round “BYE”, and will play their first match Thursday evening. The Bulldawgs will face the winner of the Centennial/Albuquerque High match at 6 pm at the Rio Rancho Event Center. Should they win, their next match would be the following evening, Friday, November 15 at 6 pm. (A loss would have them playing an earlier Friday match, 12 noon.)

Centennial High School’s tournament life starts at high noon on Thursday, November 14. The Hawks will take on Albuquerque High. The winner of this match will take on Las Cruces High School later that day. The loser will play again the next day, starting at noon.

District 3-5A	W-L (Dist)	SW	SL	Streak
Las Cruces	23-0(10-0)	45	3	15W
Centennial	10-5(2-0)	32	18	2W
Organ Mountain	8-6(2-0)	29	26	2W
Mayfield	7-8(0-2)	29	29	3L
Gadsden	6-9(0-2)	20	30	3L
Alamogordo	1-13(0-2)	7	39	13L

Team names link to MaxPreps.

Class 4A Tournament

Santa Teresa was the only school in our broader community seeded in the Class 4A State Championship Tournament.

The Lady Warriors were seeded 3rd overall, and earned a first round “BYE”. Their first opponent will be the winner of the Portales/Gallup match, and will be played at 4 pm at the Rio Rancho Event Center on Thursday, November 14.

District 3-4A	W-L	SW	SL	Streak
Santa Teresa	18-4 (6-0)	57	23	8W
Silver	20-3 (4-2)	64	18	2W
Deming	5-15 (1-5)	23	49	5L
Chaparral	11-12 (1-5)	40	42	2L

Team names link to MaxPreps.

Class 2A Tournament

The Mesilla Valley Christian School SonBlazers were seeded 3rd in the Class 2A State Championship Tournament.

The SonBlazers will face the winner of the Questa/Santa Rosa match at 4 pm at Rio Rancho High School on Thursday, November 14.

District 3-2A	W-L	SW	SL	Streak
Mesilla Valley Christian School	20-3 (8-0)	60	11	9W
Lordsburg	12-8 (5-3)	37	24	1W
Cloudcroft	14-8 (5-3)	47	30	1L
Capitan	2-19 (1-6)	17	59	6L
Mescalero Apache	2-21 (0-7)	11	66	10L

Team names link to MaxPreps.

Class 3A Results

Hatch Valley High School was the only 3A team in our broader community. They failed to earn a spot at this year’s Class 3A State Volleyball Championship.

District 3-3A	W-L	SW	SL	Streak
Hot Springs	13-10 (5-1)	43	33	3W
Cobre	16-8 (5-1)	52	29	1L
Hatch Valley	7-15 (2-4)	26	49	1W
Socorro	2-20 (0-6)	9	62	13L

Good Luck, Athletes!

Las Cruces Digest would like to wish all of the student athletes the best of luck at this year’s state championship tournaments. We would also like to congratulate all the players from all the schools in our broader community for continuing to build a better community though scholastic sportsmanship. Congratulations!

Article posted by:

Levi Gwaltney

Levi Gwaltney is the Editor In Chief of Las Cruces Digest. The Editor makes editorial and posting decisions regarding content published on this site. In most cases, the Editor makes little if any contribution to content published, and takes no credit for the content of republished posts. If available, the source or author of posts is provided at the top of the article.