After two years in Los Lunas, Pablo Gabaldon is moving north.
Gabaldon, 39, is Valley High School’s new boys basketball coach. He had been coaching Los Lunas the past two seasons.
“It’s always been a really good job,” Gabaldon said. “I’ve been a basketball fanatic since I was five years old, watching games at Valley.”
Gabaldon will be getting a relatively late start with the Vikings, as it’s only been a couple of weeks since they told EZ Panas they would not be renewing his coaching contract.
“It’s not ideal, but at the end of the day,” he said, “we can make it work.”
Valley is coming off a difficult 5-23 season, but the Vikings were in the Class 4A state championship game just two years ago.
“I know a lot about their tradition … I’m just excited (to be there). There was an opportunity and I decided to take it,” said Gabaldon, who is from Belen and played at Belen High.
He was an assistant to Travis Julian at Los Lunas for seven seasons before he was promoted to head coach when Julian left the Tigers.
Gabaldon said he believes Valley will bounce back this season.
“(Class) 4A is always competitive, but I definitely think we can be competitive moving forward,” he said. “I have no doubt how tough those kids are.”
Valley’s recent coaching purge also includes longtime baseball coach Chad Kuhn after two-plus decades in the North Valley.
MORE CHANGE: For the second time in the same offseason, the defending Class 5A girls soccer state champions made a coaching change.
Eldorado in April hired Todd Padgett to take over a program that stood atop the 5A division last November. But Padgett eventually decided to step away and not take the job, athletic director Roy Sanchez said.
The Eagles hired Matt Simonds, 45, to lead the program into the 2026 season. Simonds played for the Eagles in the late 1990s. He has been coaching with the Athletic Soccer Club, based in Albuquerque.
“I’ve always considered the opportunity to coach here to be kind of my dream job,” Simonds said. “When it initially opened up, things didn’t work out. When the opportunity presented itself a second time, seemed like the right opportunity at the right time.”
Aaron Forrester resigned as Eldorado’s head coach following last season and later landed at La Cueva.
“No pressure, right?” Simonds said with a laugh about inheriting a state championship team with little time to prepare for a new season. “It’s more than just the fact they won a state championship, it’s the players. They have a fantastic, returning group.”
And Simonds made it clear that the bar remains extremely high at Eldorado.
“Anything short of a championship is deemed a failure,” he said. “But we’re competitors, and the opportunity to jump in and compete at the highest level is exciting.”
The Albuquerque Metro Championships begin a week from Saturday, Aug. 22.
SCRIMMAGES: The regular season for high school football begins on Aug. 20. This week, the state’s teams will be staging their scrimmages.
Here are several of note in the metro area this week:
Defending Class 6A state champion Cleveland will scrimmage Eldorado at Wilson Stadium at 6:30 or 7 p.m. Thursday, depending on the conclusion of the JV game.
Los Lunas, Sandia and Volcano Vista are staging a three-way scrimmage at Nusenda Community Stadium. Action begins at 4 p.m. on Thursday.
Cibola and West Mesa are scrimmaging on the Mustangs’ field at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. In Bernalillo, the Spartans are scrimmaging Highland and Santa Fe.
Also of note is the Thursday scrimmage in Santa Fe between St. Michael’s and St. Pius.
James Yodice covers prep sports for the Journal. You can reach him at jyodice@abqjournal.com or via X at @JamesDYodice.
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