Belen opens Class 4A baseball playoff series against Hope Christian

Belen opened its Class 4A playoff series at 3 p.m. Friday against sixth-seeded Hope Christian, with KOB 4 carrying the matchup and Game 2 set for 10 a.m. Saturday at the University of New Mexico if the Eagles could extend the best-of-three. For No. 11 Belen, the formula was plain: make the opener a tight, low-scoring game, avoid the kind of big innings that have already hurt them twice against Hope Christian, and lean on coach Justin Miller, the second-year head coach who has kept the program in the postseason conversation.

The New Mexico Activities Association released the 2026 brackets May 3, and the Class 4A Round of 16 was set up as a best-of-three series as part of a championship schedule that runs May 6, 8-9 and 14-16. Belen entered at 15-10 overall and 5-3 in district play, while Hope Christian came in at 20-6 and 6-2. On paper, the seed line favored the Huskies, but the gap looked narrower once the numbers from the regular season were put side by side.

Hope Christian beat Belen 5-3 in eight innings on Feb. 26 in Belen, then won again 23-18 on March 12 in a game that turned into a slugfest. Those two results showed both sides of the matchup: one was a one-run game stretched deep into extras, and the other was a track meet that pushed both offenses into the open. If Belen was going to steal the series, it needed to do more than swing with Hope Christian; it had to control the pace, limit free runs and force the series into the kind of game where one inning could swing everything.

That urgency carried extra weight in Belen, where the Eagles have spent the last two postseasons trying to do more than just qualify. Last year, Belen earned a No. 4 seed and hosted Chaparral in a first-round series, a sign the program had moved beyond simply making the bracket. This year’s trip to Albuquerque was a step back in seeding, but not necessarily in expectation. Against a team that had already beaten them twice, Belen still had a path, and in a best-of-three format, one sharp game can change a postseason fast.