High school sports by the numbers County participation at 46 percent

Numbers may not make the most compelling sports report, but they do sometimes tell a story.

That was the case when Wilson Holland, Los Lunas Schools director of athletics, and Steven Contreras, Belen Consolidated Schools athletic director, provided the News-Bulletin a summary of athletic participation during the 2023-24 school year for area high schools.

In short, how many students were playing sports, and in which programs?

An accountant may be best at analyzing this data, but overall, the figures seem to be decent. A total of 45.7 percent of the number of students at Los Lunas, Valencia and Belen high schools participated in athletics.

Los Lunas Schools

Several items stand out for Holland, starting with the overall grade-point average among athletes in the Los Lunas district.

LLHS and VHS each achieved an average 3.4 GPA for all participants, boys and girls combined during the 2023-24 school year.

“We try to have our GPAs over 3.0.,” Holland said. “That’s important.”

At LLHS, 48 percent of the school enrollment of 1,372 students participated in at least one sport during the academic year — 428 boys at 58 percent, and 236 girls for 37 percent.

Leading the way for Tiger athletics was football (137), followed by track (88), wrestling (41), dance (37) and cheerleading (34).

Holland is making changes with LLHS track by hiring two new head coaches.

“We’re looking at splitting that head track job, going back to what we had a couple of years ago,” Holland said, with a head coach for both the boys and girls.

An area of concern for all athletic programs is staying compliant with Title IX, making sure girls have equal opportunities.

“We’re always trying to get girls out for sports,” Holland said.

The addition of powerlifting and wrestling as sanctioned girls’ sports should continue to help that effort; however, only two females took part in Los Lunas wrestling last school year. Just one female went out for Tiger golf.

Compared to LLHS, gender roles are reversed at VHS, which had a total enrollment of 879 students, 466 boys and 423 girls. Jaguar females had a higher participation rate at 44 percent while the boys were at 39 percent.

VHS volleyball had the largest group in 2023-24 with 36 competitors, while football was next with 35.

Valencia did not have a dance team last year, impacting the overall school numbers. Holland says he has had a difficult time finding a qualified dance coach but has several candidates under consideration.

“We find people who are qualified, people who are effective and efficient,” Holland said.

VHS, with a total of 879 students, had a low turnout in several sports, including track (22 total), golf (two), cross country (seven) and swimming (seven). Swimming and tennis have been hindered at Valencia because athletes must travel off campus for practice.

There were a total of 183 boys and 183 girls who competed for Valencia last school year.

The Jaguars had good participation elsewhere — baseball (32), powerlifting (31, including 11 girls), and volleyball (36).

Holland is currently seeking a new coach for Valencia track in an effort to increase participation.

“Our goal is to make sure we’ve got 40 boys and 30 girls,” in track, Holland said.

When talking about getting students involved at both VHS and LLHS, Holland said, “We’re going to continue to do what we can, even at the middle school level, even at the youth league level, to get those kids excited about participating in sports, to make sure we can increase those numbers.”

Belen High School

Belen High School, with 1,069 total students, sees a participation percentage similar to numbers from Valencia and Los Lunas. Forty-five percent of BHS students take part in athletics, 47 percent male, 44 percent female.

Grade point averages for BHS were not available, but Contreras says Eagles’ coaches are “doing the best that they can in keeping the kids academically eligible.”

Contreras says some coaches donate their lunch hour to work with students, seek peer tutoring help and communicate with individual teachers about any issues.

“We would like it to be a little bit higher,” Contreras said of the 44 percent female participation, “but that’s not a bad number.”

Contreras likes the direction female powerlifting and wrestling are going.

“The female interest as the season went on increased (in both.) I’m assuming next year both those female numbers will be higher.”

With that hope, Contreras has hired female coaches for both wrestling and powerlifting.

In this era of sports specialization, Contreras says it is a priority for all Belen coaches to share athletes.

“We don’t want any coach trying to influence an athlete to stick to their sport,” he said.

Coaches are encouraged to stay active with middle school and feeder programs while recruiting students within BHS and holding summer camps.

While saying that he would like participation to be higher, Contreras adds, “I don’t think we had any glaring weakness in any particular sport.”

Overall participation was led by football (74), track (50), wrestling (44), boys basketball (38) and powerlifting (30).

Belen High School enrollment

Male: 561

Female: 508

Total: 1,069

Students in athletics

Male: 265 (47 percent)

Female: 222 (44 percent)

Total: 487 (45 percent)

Participation by sport

Baseball: 29

Softball: Not available

Boys Basketball: 38

Girls Basketball: 30

Cheer: 25

Boys Cross Country: 10

Girls Cross Country: 11

Football: 74

Boys Golf: 9

Girls Golf: 8

Boys Soccer: 20

Girls Soccer: 22

Boys Swim: 8

Girls Swim: 7

Boys Tennis: 6

Girls Tennis: 7

Boys Track: 24

Girls Track: 26

Volleyball: 28

Boys Wrestling: 36

Girls Wrestling: 8

Boys Powerlifting: 21

Girls Powerlifting: 8

Los Lunas High School enrollment

Male: 732

Female: 640

Total: 1,372

Students in athletics

Male: 428 (58 percent)

Female: 236 (37 percent)

Total: 664 (48 percent)

Participation by sport

Baseball: 43 (GPA 3.1)

Softball: 21 (GPA 3.4)

Boys Basketball: 32 (GPA 3.4)

Girls Basketball: 22 (GPA 3.5)

Cheer: 34 (GPA 3.3)

Dance: 37 (GPA 3.8)

Boys Cross Country: 11 (GPA 3.1)

Girls Cross Country: 8 (GPA 3.9)

Football: 137 (GPA 3.0)

Boys Golf: 11 (GPA 2.7)

Girls Golf: 1

Boys Soccer: 33 (GPA 2.6)

Girls Soccer: 22 (GPA 3.8)

Boys Swim: 11 (GPA 3.5)

Girls Swim: 10 (GPA 3.5)

Boys Tennis: 16 (GPA 3.5)

Girls Tennis: 10 (GPA 3.6)

Boys Track: 54 (GPA 3.3)

Girls Track: 34 (GPA 3.3)

Volleyball: 30 (GPA 3.6)

Boys Wrestling: 39 (GPA 3.1)

Girls Wrestling: 2

Boys Powerlifting: 37 (GPA 3.0)

Girls Powerlifting: 7 (GPA 3.0)

Valencia High School enrollment

Male: 466

Female: 423

Total: 879

Students in athletics

Male: 183 (39 percent)

Female: 183 (44 percent)

Total: 366 (42 percent)

Participation by sport

Baseball: 32 (GPA 3.4)

Softball: 21 (GPA 3.1)

Boys Basketball: 20 (GPA 2.7)

Girls Basketball: 26 (GPA 3.4)

Cheer: 24 (GPA 3.0)

Boys Cross Country: 4

Girls Cross Country: 3

Football: 35 (GPA 2.8)

Boys Golf: 2

Girls Golf: 0

Boys Soccer: 29 (GPA 2.8)

Girls Soccer: 18 (GPA 3.6)

Boys Swim: 5 (GPA 4.0)

Girls Swim: 2

Boys Tennis: 6 (GPA 3.9)

Girls Tennis: 7 (GPA 3.9)

Boys Track: 13 (GPA 3.6)

Girls Track: 9 (GPA 3.6)

Volleyball: 36 (GPA 3.7)

Boys Wrestling: 17 (GPA 3.3)

Girls Wrestling: 6 (GPA 3.7)

Boys Powerlifting: 20 (GPA 3.2)

Girls Powerlifting: 11 (GPA 3.9)