Mayfield crushing home run records while trying to win first state softball championship

State Softball Championships

All games at UNM

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Class 4A: No. 1 Artesia vs. No. 2 Aztec, 10 a.m. Game 1 (if-necessary Game 2 at 2 p.m.)

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Class 5A: No. 1 Mayfield vs. No. 10 Las Cruces High, noon Game 1 (if-necessary Game 2 at 4 p.m.)

Through the sporting goods company Wilson, one can purchase a dozen A9011 leather polycore softballs for $124.99.

It's unclear if that pretty new NMAA logo made that price go up at all for the cases of shiny neon yellow balls being used at this week's state softball tournaments.

What is clear, however, is the Mayfield Trojans are doing their part to keep Wilson in business, obliterating those $10-plus balls all season and seemingly obliterating any recorded state record for softball home runs in a season.

That includes four more long balls for the No. 1 seeded Trojans in a 12-3 win in Friday's Class 5A semifinal over Las Cruces High, Mayfield enters Saturdays' Championship series — looking for the school’s first softball title in a rematch with the Bulldawgs — having launched 95 home runs this season.

"I think our home run hitting is contagious," said Jayleen Ponce on Friday morning, even before the junior went 4-for-4 against Las Cruces with solo home runs in the first and fourth innings for homers 17 and 18 on the season.

"We have Ausaundra (Roberto, a sophomore with 17 home runs) as our leadoff hitter, so to see her get on or to just barrel up on a ball just gets us going and Dallas (Bencomo, the team's senior slugger with 16 homers) can turn it over, too. All the girls just get going and then we all keep it rolling."

In addition to Ponce's two solo shots in Friday’s win, sophomore Genesis Angel had a 3-run home run in the fourth for her 15th of the season (fourth on the team). And then freshman Audriana Guillen, apparently tired of being the only regular in the lineup without one, hit her first home run of the season — a sixth-inning grand slam.

In all, Mayfield has six players with 10 or more homers and four with 15 or more.

While there aren't good team records kept for high school softball in New Mexico, it appears Mayfield’s 95 homers is as many as 30 more than any other team has had.

Mayfield Coach Daniel Dominguez said he's been told West Las Vegas had 64 in a season once, and according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, the most ever reported by a New Mexico school was 59 by Carlsbad in 2023. (Mayfield had 56 last season).

The national record according to NFHS’s records — like New Mexico’s, only as good as the teams reporting their stat’s — is 105 homers by North Desoto High School in Stonewall, Louisiana, in 2022. Last year, Melissa (Texas) High School posted a story on its school website saying it broke that record by hitting 122.

Trojan home runs this season

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18 Ponce, Jr.

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17 Roberto, So.

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16 Bencomo, Sr.

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15 Angel, So.

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10 Ariana Lujan, So.

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10 Payton Oliver, So.

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6 Emily Perez, So.

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1 Brisa Quintana, Jr.

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1 Angelina Ramirez, Sr.

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1 Guillen, Fr.

So, while Mayfield may not be getting to national record territory, what they’re doing is still unprecedented in these parts, even for their coach.

"You have to kind of adjust with the group that you have," Dominguez said. "We've had teams where we slap because we had a lot of team speed and not a lot of power. You work with what you've got at the high school level and our girls are in the gym all the time. They take that stuff serious. It matters to them. They want to be better and they work to get there."

Said Bencomo, the senior who is playing collegiately in Montana next year, the strength of this team is literally that: Strength.

"I would say a lot of us are just power hitters — we've all been power hitters," said Bencomo. "We're very, I would say ... stocky girls. We're muscular. We're not tiny."

Saturday's championship game is at noon at UNM, with an if-necessary Game 2 at 4 p.m.

Other Class 5A action

Friday was an all southern-New Mexico affair.

After the Mayfield loss, the 10th seeded Bulldawgs beat No. 2 Alamogordo for the second time in the double-elimination tournament — 3-1 last week and 12-7 on Friday night — to get their rematch with Mayfield.

Alamo had won three-consecutive elimination games before falling to Las Cruces.

Class 4A

At Cleveland, No. 1 Artesia got half the job done, beating No. 2 Aztec 5-3 in the semifinals to advance to Saturday's championship series.

The problem is, it's a double-elimination tournament and the Tigers worked their way back through the consolation bracket.

Artesia senior Kayden Apodaca was 3-for-3 with three RBIs at the plate and struck out 10 from the pitching circle in the mid-day win for the Bulldogs (26-4).

Aztec's Kamora Henry, meanwhile, struck out 16 in the loss to Artesia, but came back and pitched a second complete game in a 4-2 elimination game win over No. 3 Silver in the afternoon. Cami Lucio drove in three for the Tigers (22-6) in the win.

Saturday's championship is at 10 a.m. at UNM with an if-necessary Game 2 scheduled for 2 p.m.

Class 3A

At the UNM Softball Field, reigning Gatorade Player of the Year Malie Satete continued to etch her name into state softball lore.

After her state-record 25 home run season as an eighth grader two years ago led West Las Vegas to its first state title, the now-sophomore pitched a five-hit, 10 strikeout game Friday and hit a two-RBI game-winning double in a 2-1 win over No. 4 Cobre for the Class 3A championship.

Class 1A/2A

No. 22 was blue and beautiful for Loving on Friday at UNM.

The top-seeded Falcons beat No. 3 Hozho Academy, 5-1, to claim state championship No. 22 and finish the season 22-3. Sophomore Braylee Hunt struck out seven in a seven-hit, one run complete game and also hit a home run.

Hozho Academy, which also lost to Loving in the title game last year, finishes with a 27-5 record.

Reach Geoff Grammer at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.