Monarchs hire new football coach; Lunn, Benally named Gatorade Players of the Year
· Yahoo Sports
Michael Holguin has held almost every position inside a high school football coaching room.
Visit newsbetsport.bond for more information.
About the only box he hadn’t ticked was being a head coach, which is no longer accurate now that the 31-year-old has been named the new head coach at Manzano.
Holguin replaces Stephen Johnston, who recently left the Monarchs to become the head coach at Los Lunas.
“This felt like the next step,” Holguin said in a telephone interview from suburban Phoenix. “My goal from day one of coaching was wanting to run my own program and see what I can do.”
Holguin the last three seasons has been coaching at Higley High in Gilbert, Arizona. Last season he was the co-defensive coordinator.
He played receiver and safety for Jim Miller at Las Cruces High, where he graduated in 2013. He later graduated from New Mexico State.
Holguin served as an assistant coach at both Centennial and Organ Mountain before going to Higley.
He inherits a Manzano team that has qualified for the Class 4A playoffs the last two seasons.
“Back when I was in high school, Manzano was rolling,” he said. “Manzano was always a really good program when I was growing up. … My goal is to get back to those days when it was one of the premier programs in the city and the state.”
Holguin has already met with his new team, and will join the Manzano staff when his teaching position opens.
Playing under Miller, and coaching alongside the likes of Aaron Ocampo at Centennial, he said, should prove beneficial.
“It’s the way I want to do things, culture-wise,” Holguin said. “It’s what you allow, and what you do every single day. It’s a championship mindset and championship mentality.”
GATORADE: David Lunn of Volcano Vista and Kaiyah Benally of Sandia are the 2025-26 New Mexico Gatorade Players of the Year in high school basketball.
After multiple years with former teammate Kenyon Aguino taking the Gatorade award, it stays in the Volcano family as the 6-foot-4 Lunn, a junior guard, wins this season.
Lunn averaged 20.6 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists last season, and tallied 23 points in the state final against Cleveland.
Sandia sophomore guard Kaiyah Benally is the girls’ Gatorade recipient, the third straight year it went to a Benally. Her older sister Sydney was the winner the previous two seasons.
Kaiyah, a 5-7 guard, averaged 17.5 points, 7.2 rebounds, 6.5 steals and 5.7 assists last season for the Matadors.
PUENTES: The annual Sal Puentes Tournament at Rio Rancho begins on Thursday, with a traditionally strong field — one of the strongest of the regular season.
Four of the top six ranked teams in Class 5A are entered at the Puentes, led by No. 1 Cleveland (13-0), fresh off its triumph at the Albuquerque Metro Championships.
Rio Rancho, the metro runner-up, is the host. Carlsbad has six losses, but four of those setbacks have come to Cleveland and Piedra Vista, who are a combined 25-0.
La Cueva, which skipped metros to compete in the Boras Classic in suburban Phoenix last weekend where the Bears went 3-1, is also in the Puentes.
Four top 4A programs, including defending state champion Artesia, round out the field. St. Pius, Goddard (ranked No. 1 in MaxPreps) and Albuquerque Academy also are playing.
Thursday’s quarterfinals feature Goddard versus La Cueva at 10 a.m., Artesia-Cleveland at 12:30 p.m., Rio Rancho against Academy at 3 p.m., and St. Pius meeting Carlsbad at 5:30 p.m.
The semifinals are 3 and 5:30 Friday afternoon, with the final at 3 p.m. Saturday.
GRIEGO: Rio Rancho’s Kristin Griego Tournament has a large volume of top softball teams from the metro area in the field.
That list includes Cibola, La Cueva, Los Lunas, Sandia and Cleveland, plus several top programs from outside the metro area, like Alamogordo and Kirtland Central.
Action begins Thursday at Eagle Ridge Middle School. The semifinals are Saturday morning at 8, the title game is 2 p.m. Saturday.
James Yodice covers prep sports for the Journal. You can reach him at [email protected] or via X at @JamesDYodice.