Girls basketball: area teams unhappy with state seedings

FRUITLAND, N.M.

There was a slew of mixed feelings for many of the area girls’ basketball teams when the New Mexico high school state seeding selections were announced this week.

Some coaches were happy with their seeding and others felt they should have received a higher seed.

Here is a look at the state seeding selection for our area teams and what some of their coaches think.

District 1-5A had the highest number of state qualifier among the districts throughout the area.

Kirtland Central received the highest seed within that district at No.7 and will host No. 10 Del Norte on Friday at 6 p.m.

Kirtland Central head coach John Zecca said he assumed his team would get a higher seed but has made peace with the selection.

“I can’t really complain with the seven, see, we did have a really tough district,” he said. “As you can see with us getting five teams in that’s pretty impressive.”

Zecca said he anticipates Del Norte will be tough competition.

He said they played just about as tough of a schedule as his team did this season.

“I know they have a very good team and this week can sometimes be challenging,” he said. “There is some pressure involved and even though we’re playing at home, when you’re playing a good team, we have to be focused.”

The Lady Broncos finished as the regular district season champions but fell short in the district tournament semifinals.

District champions Bloomfield came in just behind Kirtland Central with the No. 8 seed. They will host No. 9 Lovington on Friday at 7 p.m.

Bloomfield head coach Tom Adair said he too was accepting of the seed his team received especially since they fell short to Kirtland Central in the regular district season.

“We feel good about it. We kind of did it to ourselves when we let Kirtland win the regular season district, we just had a bad week last week,” he said. “Those things happen. We just need to be happy with where we’re at.”

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