Local Legends: Metro Masters Claim Basketball Crown 🏆
Joe Carpenter had a very specific point to make. He was frustrated, he said, with the general blanket of anonymity the girls he coaches at Hobbs High School continually must overcome. The program’s results, he said, begged that more attention be paid.
“I just want my kids to get noticed and recognized occasionally,” he said. The point perhaps was valid to a degree on an individual basis. But collectively, Hobbs’ mix of athletes continues to do it as good as anyone.
The top-seeded Eagles (29-2) won the Class 5A girls basketball state championship on Saturday afternoon at the Pit, overcoming No. 3 Rio Rancho 66-53 with a strong second half, and captured the program’s third title this decade. “I think people doubted us,” Carpenter said.
“I know that’s cliche, but when you lose seven seniors as good as the ones we had, it says a lot. ” It was this, Carpenter said — and not for the first time — that had him convinced that few people outside the bubble of his locker room believed his Eagles had the legs for a deep run in March. But Hobbs was the best team in 5A for virtually the entire season — in hindsight, a December home loss to Farmington was more of a glitch than cause for concern — and the Eagles put an exclamation point on this tremendous campaign with wins over La Cueva, Albuquerque High and Rio Rancho (27-5) over the last five days “I think we have a lot of grit and work hard, and we just keep putting in the work and we fight adversity as a team,” said senior guard Matysen Zepeda, one of just two key senior contributors on this Hobbs roster.
She had 12 points and five rebounds Saturday. “And we have each other’s backs every day. ” The other senior who logged major minutes and moments was Aliana Armitage, Hobbs’ smallest starter (5-2) but who led the team in rebounds with seven.