There were few roster vacancies to fill for new Northern New Mexico College coach Mandy Montoya when she took over the Eagles women’s basketball program.
But one of those coveted slots went to local player GG Romero, who recently graduated from Pojoaque Valley High School.
“She’s a gym rat,” Montoya said of Romero, who scored 19 points in the Elkettes opening round state tournament loss to St. Pius High School in March. “She’s just tough. Tough as nails.”
Romero, who stands 5-foot, 7-inches tall, has the type of all-around skills that the coach seeks in players.
“She’s very versatile,” Montoya said. “She’s very good at handling the ball. She can score at all three levels and play at all three levels.”
But, just as important, is her attitude.
“I love kids who are constantly wanting to work on their game,” Montoya said. “When you’re a gym rat, you put in the work. You’re going to get better.”
Romero, who is from Nambé Pueblo, played her first four years at Los Alamos High School before transferring to Pojoaque for her final season. In the only year in which her stats are available, she averaged a team-best 18.3 points as a junior with the Hilltoppers with 5.2 rebounds and 1.8 steals.
Montoya also added New Mexico Highlands transfer Mistidawn Roybal, who took a redshirt season last year after seeing little playing time as a freshman after a standout career at Robertson High School.
At 5-10, Roybal can also play multiple positions, but her strength is on the defensive end.
“She prides her defensively, no matter the position,” Montoya said. “She’s just an athlete, a hard-nosed kid. She will do whatever it takes, the dirty work, but she can get to the rim.”
A big believer in the quality of local players, Montoya is on the lookout for more players that can help the program in the future,which is one of the goals behind her first team camp at the school last weekend, which ended with Mesa Vista High School winning the overall championship.
“The team camp was great,” she said. “We had seven teams, mostly from Northern New Mexico schools.”
The teams played a round-robin format the first day, then finished off the next day with a tournament, giving each of the teams plenty of playing time.
“It’s an opportunity to see a lot of these kids,” Montoya said. “For me, most of them I’ve already watched just from having been coaching at the high school level.”
Still, it’s important for the teams to get a chance to get together as they prepare for the high school season, she said.
“The summer for high school teams is big,” Montoya said. “June is the time for basketball teams to get better for the upcoming season. To have a camp here locally with so many high schools in the surrounding communities is good. We got a lot of compliments. I hope next year and in the future the camp grows.”
In addition to the Trojans, Española Valley High School, McCurdy Charter School, Peñasco, Escalante and West Las Vegas high schools attended the camp, as well as local club team SPARKX.
Montoya, who was previously an assistant coach at Northern New Mexico College, said she had the camp up to nearly 20 teams.
“That’s the hope, to get it that big,” she said.
But considering Montoya just took over the program last month, this was a strong start, especially since the plan is to have some youth skills camps in July, and in August once the rest of the Eagles players return to campus.
“It was good,” she said. “Competitive. A lot of competitive games. A lot of the teams were really young so from every team there were some players that I had seen before just because they were younger, so that was good to see. The future looks bright for a lot of schools.”
And for the Montoya, the camp served its purpose.
“Obviously, it’s about seeing potential recruits,” she said. “Because I pride myself on being able to recruit New Mexico recruits.”