Record-Setting Season Concludes for East Mountain at Class 3A State Tournament

RIO RANCHO, N.M. — A historic season for the East Mountain Lady Timberwolves came to a heartbreaking end Friday at the Rio Rancho Events Center, falling 3-1 to the Navajo Prep Lady Fighting Eagles in the Class 3A state volleyball tournament.

In a tightly contested match, Navajo Prep took the opening set 25-23 before East Mountain rallied to claim an extended second set, 29-27, to even the match. However, the momentum shifted dramatically early in the third set when East Mountain’s Evelyn Salberg went down with an ankle/foot injury. The Lady Fighting Eagles capitalized on the disruption in the middle, edging out the third set 25-23 before closing out the match 25-15 in the fourth.

For an East Mountain squad that competed all season with a nine-player varsity roster — promoting two players from junior varsity specifically for the postseason — losing a key contributor on the state stage proved difficult to overcome.

“It’s always scary, especially on this stage,” first-year head coach Claire Rose said. “Every player in this building has worked so hard to get to where we are, and so to have an injury take you out is challenging. More important than that, Evelyn is our family, and so it’s really hard to see someone like that go down.”

Rose noted that the team had to scramble to adjust its lineup, leaning on senior Elly Saldana — who had prior experience playing in the middle — to help fill the void.

“Having Evie go down at the beginning of Game 3 was hard,” Rose said. “Everyone was rattled. It’s scary. So just trying to get them to reframe and remember that we have a job to do, and to just keep fighting.”

Despite the loss, the 2026 campaign stands as the most successful in East Mountain program history. The Lady Timberwolves finished with a 16-10 record, shattering the previous school record of 12 wins set during the 2021 season, and captured the program’s first-ever district championship.

The milestone year came under the leadership of Rose, who took over the head coaching duties after spending years as an assistant under Kasi Giovenco. Giovenco stepped down from the coaching bench to focus full-time on her duties as athletic director as East Mountain expanded to add a sixth grade this school year.

“We talked about how even in the summer that we wanted to leave a legacy for East Mountain High School, and that has been our drive,” Rose said. “They are small but mighty, and they just love each other so much. Overall this season, I feel like we had opportunities that we could really put our name on the map, and I think that we did that.”

With Saldana serving as the lone senior on the roster, the Lady Timberwolves will return the vast majority of their core next fall.

“She’s going to leave a big hole, but we are ready, and we’re hungry for more,” Rose said. “What I told the girls in the huddle is that this is the team that has laid that foundation for the legacy for the future, and I firmly believe that. I want them to feel proud that they each have laid their cornerstone in this legacy of East Mountain.”

East Mountain’s state tournament roster includes Henley Hatley, Bella Rae Winnicki, Elly Saldana, Eva Rullo, Skylar Graff, Ada Hansen, Evelyn Salberg, Olivia Gonzales, Sonya Gonzales, Alynna Cook, and Calla DiMaio.