<\/p>\n
The West Las Vegas High School softball team poses with its blue trophy after defeating Cobre 2-1 in the state championship game on May 15.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Photo Courtesy New Mexico Activities Association <\/p>\n
For the second time in three years, the West Las Vegas High School softball team is the Class 3A state champions. The Lady Dons claimed the championship last Friday with a tense 2-1 victory against Cobre in a game that pitted two of the top pitchers in the state against each other: Cobre\u2019s Bella Saiz and West\u2019s Male \u201cMoogie\u201d Satete. As has been the case throughout Satete\u2019s three-year high school career, she had the last laugh.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Lady Dons reclaimed their spot at the top of Class 3A, finishing with a 24-4 record this year, though it was anything but a cakewalk for the tournament\u2019s No. 1 seed. Their road to the championship included a pair of tense games against Cobre, first on May 13, a 3-2 victory courtesy of a three-run home run in the first inning off the bat of Satete, and again in Friday\u2019s state championship game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The only two runs in that game also came courtesy of Satete, though they were partially the result of Cobre’s misfortune. The Lady Indians took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, a rare instance of the Lady Dons trailing in a winner-take-all environment. Cobre\u2019s pitcher Saiz appeared to be in cruise control mode, keeping the Lady Dons scoreless for the first two innings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The tide began to turn in the third inning, when junior Sarah Salazar reached thanks to an error made by the Cobre third baseman. She moved to second base when senior Tyra Horner was hit by a pitch. That set the stage for Satete to become the hero, as she so often has been throughout her career. And she delivered, driving a double down the left field line, scoring Salazar and Horner and giving her team the lead 2-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From there, she kept the lead intact inside the pitching circle, striking out 10 batters and allowing only five hits. She didn\u2019t walk any batters and also didn\u2019t hit any. She shut the door and kept the Lady Indians off the scoreboard when it mattered most.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Satete finished the season with more than 300 strikeouts as a pitcher, a big key in helping her team climb back to the top of the mountain for the first time since breaking through in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is also the first state championship for head coach Julie Esquibel, the mother of Satete, who took over the top job during the 2025 season after previous head coach Roy Pacheco abruptly resigned midseason. This year was her first full season at the helm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Five players will graduate from this team, though the majority will return in 2027, hoping to earn back-to-back state championships and keep the Lady Dons on top.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The West Las Vegas High School softball team poses with its blue trophy after defeating Cobre 2-1 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2315,2309,5,2316,2314,2317,2313,2340,2325,2447,2413,3520,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,2307,2320,2327,2321,1210,185,2350,2311,2312],"class_list":["post-701658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-postseason","tag-athletic-sports","tag-ball-and-bat-games","tag-baseball","tag-baseball-competitions","tag-baseball-finals","tag-baseball-games","tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","tag-baseball-positions","tag-baseball-teams","tag-batting-baseball","tag-champion-seasons-in-major-league-baseball","tag-hit-by-pitch","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","tag-major-league-baseball-teams","tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-outdoor-sports","tag-pitcher","tag-seasons-in-american-sport","tag-seasons-in-baseball","tag-softball","tag-sports","tag-strikeout","tag-team-sports","tag-turf-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}