By Don Eskins
The Carlsbad Cavemen, 17-11 on the year, have drawn the 13th seed for this year’s 2024-25 Class 5A State Basketball Tournament. As the 13th seed, they’ll be battling a familiar foe, the fourth-seeded, 22-7 Roswell Coyotes, during the first-round action of this year’s tourney.
The game, set to tip off on Saturday night, March 8, at 6 p.m., will take place in the Alien City.
The Cavemen and Coyotes have played each other three times this year, with the Otes recording victories in each of them. On January 31, CHS dropped a close one, 47-44, to Roswell, and on February 14, they fell to the Coyotes once again, 54-43. On February 27, in the second round of the District 4/5A tournament, Roswell downed CHS 86-45.
Despite Carlsbad’s failure to register a win over Roswell High this year, Cavemen head coach John Zumbrun’s optimism remains high.
“Right now, we’re just happy to be playing in the state tournament. As a participant in the tourney, we have to be ready to compete wherever they send us,” said the Caveman head coach. “They’re sending us to Roswell, so, despite having already seen them three times this year, we’ll be ready to play when we take the floor.
“Other than an 86-45 loss to the Coyotes in the second round of the district tournament, a game in which we let the final two quarters of play get away from us, we’ve competed well with Roswell. If we can play fundamentally sound basketball against them, we’ll be okay. We just need to tighten up defensively, hit the boards, and drop in a few more shots.”
The Cavemen will look to Kyran Orgain, Jacob Chavarria, Zenas Huerta, and Shane Sullivan to drop in the lion’s share of those shots.
Huerta, in CHS’s 86-45 loss to the Coyotes, led all Cavemen scorers with 17 points.
Following first-round play, the state tournament will move to Albuquerque for its quarter-final, semi-final, and championship rounds on March 12-15.
A victory over the Coyotes would move the Cavemen on to a quarter-final matchup with the winner of the (8) Organ Mt. vs. (12) Farmington game on Wednesday, March 12, at 9:45 a.m. in the UNM Pit.
2024-25 NMAA Class 5A State Basketball Tournament Seeding: 1. Volcano Vista, 2. Hobbs, 3. Sandia, 4. Roswell, 5. Organ Mt., 6. Albuquerque High, 7. Cleveland, 8. La Cueva, 9. Cibola, 10. Atrisco Heritage Academy, 11. Santa Fe, 12. Farmington, 13. Carlsbad, 14. Rio Rancho, 15. Las Cruces, 16. West Mesa.
On Thursday, February 27, the Cavemen dropped a second-round District 4/5A tournament game to the Roswell Coyotes, 87-43, in Roswell. Game results:
D4/5A Rd. February 2 27, 2025
CHS 08-20-08-07--43
RHS 25-14-25-23--87
Scoring: Zenas Huerta 17, Kyran Orgain 10, Shane Sullivan 7, Jacob Chavarria 2, Maiq Mills 1, Mario De Leon 6.
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