Congratulations Sandia High sCHOOL on winning the 2025 New Mexico Baseball State Championship!

Photos by Mike Sandoval, Albuquerque Journal

During Chris Eaton’s four seasons as the head baseball coach at Sandia High School in Albuquerque (2018-2022, with a lost Covid season), the team reached the state championship game and the state semi-final game the last two consecutive years.  However, the state championship trophy in New Mexico’s “big school” division remained as elusive for Sandia as it had since 1980. 

That 45-year drought ended on a sparkling clear Saturday night, May 17, 2025, when the Matadors beat Eldorado High, a team that had swept Sandia all three times they had faced each other during the regular season.

This team was the last one with players Chris had coached at Sandia. This year’s seniors were freshmen in 2022, Chris’s last year.  As senior shortstop Adriel Figueroa-Brito told the Albuquerque Journal Saturday night, “we did it for Chris . . . it was so much bigger than baseball to him.” Adriel repeated Chris’s mantra to players to strive to be “1% better each day” in everything they do. “Chris was a big part of me…he was a big part of everyone at Sandia,” said winning pitcher Damon McRee. As someone observed after the win, Chris’s work as a coach was now complete. 

Coincidentally, when Chris was a senior third baseman and MVP at Cibola High in 2006, Cibola beat Eldorado every time they met during the regular season, and Cibola captured the district title for the first time in something like 15 years.  However, the Eagles then knocked Cibola out of the state tournament. This year, Eldorado beat Sandia all three times they met during the season….and then came Saturday night. 

Congratulations to Sandia, Coach Marc Hilton and his team, and all the players, especially seniors Adriel Figuero-Brito, Levi Brooks, Damon McRee (Saturday’s winning pitcher), Anthony Condon, Jayden Jaramillo, Jeremiah Bustos, Alex Gonzales and Aiden Schwartz!

“Coach Eaton, it was so much bigger than baseball to him…I loved that man...”
-Adriel Figueroa-Brito

“For Chris”
-Levi Brooks

“Chris was a big part of me…he was a big part of everyone at Sandia.”
-Damon McRee

Read James Yodice’s moving tribute to former Sandia baseball head coaches Chris Eaton and John Gunther in the May 19 Albuquerque Journal. James quotes Sandia players and the coach about what Chris meant to the players and the team. James, a Cibola High graduate who had known Chris for years, has been a pillar around here— as solid and insightful reporter of high school sports news as there possibly could be.