Valencia High state champion Alexis Avis-Labus headed to Blackburn College

Alexis Avis-Labus’ leap from a 4A state title to college wrestling says as much about Valencia County’s girls wrestling pipeline as it does about one athlete’s next step. The Valencia High School senior, who won the 105-pound state championship at the end of February, announced April 1 in the VHS gym that she will continue her career at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois.

For Valencia County, the move stands out because Avis-Labus believes she may be the first female high school wrestler from the county to sign to wrestle in college since girls wrestling was sanctioned in New Mexico. That matters in a sport that only began its formal state-run path in the 2019-2020 school year, meaning the athletes now reaching college are part of one of the first true waves of girls who grew up with a sanctioned championship structure behind them.

Avis-Labus’ decision also gives younger wrestlers at Valencia High a concrete example of what the next level can look like. Blackburn said in 2025 that it was launching its first-ever women’s wrestling program, and the school named Marcus Cobbs as its inaugural head women’s wrestling coach on May 20, 2025. The Blackburn Beavers’ women’s roster page describes the team as coming in fall 2025, placing Avis-Labus among the first athletes in the program’s history.

The choice also came down to academics. Avis-Labus considered several schools, including one that reached out late in the process, but Blackburn’s biology major fit her plan to become an anesthesiologist. She also liked the school’s connections with hospitals in the region, which line up with her long-term career goals and make the transition about more than wrestling alone.

The timing underscores how quickly girls wrestling has become part of the athletic landscape in New Mexico. The New Mexico Activities Association lists the 2026 girls state championship for February 20-21 at the Rio Rancho Event Center, another sign that what once was an emerging sport is now established enough to support a statewide postseason. Around the country, the sport is also growing fast, with FloWrestling’s 2025-26 commitment list showing more than 150 women’s college wrestling programs across NAIA, NJCAA and NCAA divisions.

Avis-Labus’ signing links those bigger trends to one local gym in Valencia County. It shows that a state champion from Valencia High can move directly into college competition, and that the path for the next generation is no longer theoretical.