New Mexico High School Softball Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the New Mexico High School Softball Player of the Year award?

The New Mexico High School Softball Player of the Year is an annual spring award administered by High School on SI — the prep-sports platform jointly operated by SBLive and Sports Illustrated under the Arena Group. Each May, after the NMAA softball regular season reaches its peak, the platform publishes a free statewide fan poll at si.com/high-school/new-mexico where any reader can vote for the top girls softball performer in the state. The award covers all NMAA classifications — from Class 6A metro programs down through Class A-AA rural schools — in a single open ballot.

• Hosted at si.com/high-school/new-mexico, which tracks scores, standings, stats, and rankings for every New Mexico prep sport and reaches parents, coaches, and fans statewide.
• Nominees typically include stat-leading pitchers, power hitters, and multi-positional standouts drawn from editor evaluation of the spring season's best performances across all NMAA classes.
• The fan vote is free and open to any reader — no Sports Illustrated or SBLive account, no subscription, no login required.
• New Mexico's softball season runs as an NMAA-sanctioned spring sport, with state tournament play concluding in May; the Player of the Year poll typically opens in the final weeks of the regular season or during tournament week and closes within a defined window.
• High School on SI also publishes separate spring softball category polls — top hitters, top pitchers, and top freshmen — alongside the Player of the Year ballot, providing additional recognition tiers for standout performers.
• New Mexico has produced consistently elite softball programs in recent years, with Centennial High School in Las Cruces winning back-to-back Class 6A state titles in 2024 and 2025 — a dynasty that also produced the 2025 MaxPreps New Mexico Softball Player of the Year.

A win on the High School on SI fan poll earns statewide recognition on a platform indexed nationally — a credential that appears in recruiting profiles and coach searches alongside a player's MaxPreps stats and NMAA tournament record.

Which NM softball programs and classes compete for this award?

New Mexico's NMAA organizes high school softball across four classification tiers, each crowning its own state champion each May. The High School on SI Player of the Year poll draws nominees from across all classifications, meaning a standout pitcher from Class A-AA Loving competes on the same ballot as a hitter from Class 6A Centennial in Las Cruces. The table below shows the confirmed NMAA softball state champions across the most recent three seasons — the programs and regions that consistently produce poll nominees.

Centennial High School in Las Cruces stands as New Mexico's dominant Class 6A program, posting back-to-back championships in 2024 and 2025 and a combined record that included a perfect 30-0 season in 2025. The Hawks' pitcher Destiny Perez — committed to New Mexico State — finished the 2025 spring 22-0 with 135 strikeouts and batted nearly .600, earning the MaxPreps New Mexico Softball Player of the Year. In small-class play, Loving's Falcons have claimed back-to-back A-AA titles, and Silver City's Cardinals won both the 2023 4A crown and the 2025 4A title, showing the geographic spread of elite softball across the state.

For context on New Mexico's broader high school sports ecosystem, including other fan-voted statewide awards, see the New Mexico contest guide hub.

How does the High School on SI New Mexico softball voting work?

The poll is a straightforward public fan ballot at si.com/high-school/new-mexico — no entry fee, no account, and no subscription of any kind. High School on SI publishes the ballot alongside a write-up of each nominee's season stats and key performances, then opens voting to any visitor to the page. For a primer on how free online sports fan polls function in general, see our guide to online contest voting.

What the voting window looks like

Each SI softball category poll — Player of the Year, top hitters, top pitchers, top freshmen — runs for a defined window displayed on the active poll page. Based on observed 2025 polls at si.com/high-school/new-mexico, voting typically closes at 8 p.m. Pacific Time on a specified date, giving the local New Mexico community a clear deadline to mobilise. The exact close date and time for any given poll year is shown directly on the ballot widget — always verify before planning a voting campaign, since SI adjusts windows from season to season.

The poll widget shows each nominee's name, school, class, and position, alongside a running vote count that updates throughout the window. Supporters can monitor the live standings and adjust their outreach effort based on how competitive the margin is mid-window. Voting is accessible on desktop, tablet, and mobile browsers — no SI app is required.

How is the New Mexico Softball Player of the Year winner chosen?

The winner is the nominee with the most fan votes when the poll closes — High School on SI does not apply an editorial weighting or panel override to the fan-voted award. The editorial role is limited to setting the ballot: the SI prep-sports desk selects nominees based on a combination of season statistics, team performance, and editorial evaluation of statewide impact. Once the ballot publishes, vote count alone determines the outcome.

The selection process step by step

1. Stat sweep and nomination: SI editors review NMAA spring softball performance data — pitching records, batting averages, on-base stats, team wins — and identify four to eight standout nominees from across the state's classifications.
2. Ballot published: the nominees are announced in an article at si.com/high-school/new-mexico with each player's season summary; the voting widget goes live at the same time.
3. Fan vote window opens: the community — teammates, families, classmates, coaches, booster networks — votes freely for their preferred nominee until the displayed close time.
4. Winner announced: SI publishes the result on the New Mexico softball section, naming the Player of the Year and her stats; the article is distributed via SI's social channels and indexed on the platform's national prep-sports database.

Because nominations are editorially curated before the fan vote opens, every finalist on the ballot has already earned genuine recognition — the fan vote determines which outstanding player receives the statewide title.

How do you build votes for New Mexico Softball Player of the Year?

Every vote campaign for this poll starts with the same foundation: get the direct ballot link — not just "go vote" — in front of as many real supporters as possible before the close. For broader tactics that apply to all online sports polls, the how-to guide covers the full playbook; the New Mexico-specific notes below focus on what actually matters for a statewide softball award with a tight spring-season window.

New Mexico's softball community is geographically dispersed — a player at Centennial in Las Cruces draws from southern New Mexico's Doña Ana County network, while a pitcher at Robertson in Las Vegas NM taps a tight northern New Mexico community with deep local pride. Small-school programs like Loving and Cobre often have the most cohesive fan bases per capita, meaning a rural school's vote push can be as effective as a metro program's if the community activates fully. Posts that name the athlete, school, classification, and the specific SI poll link — with the close date visible — consistently outperform vague "support her" messages.

When organic outreach has been fully deployed and a nominee is still trailing, some families and coaches turn to a paid real-voter promotion service to reach additional genuine supporters. If you pursue that option, use a service built for paced, cap-matched delivery — our sports fan poll votes service is structured around exactly that model and can be applied to SI platform polls.

Rules and the buy-votes question for this softball poll

The High School on SI fan poll is a reader-engagement feature with no cash prize and no formal sweepstakes framework under New Mexico law. The platform's own terms govern what is and is not permitted. For a full neutral analysis of vote purchasing across online contests, see our complete guide; the notes below address this specific award honestly.

Two distinct activity types exist, and it matters which one you are considering:

• Automated scripts and bots — software that fires repeated requests in violation of session or hourly caps, often rotating IPs. These circumvent the platform's rate controls, produce detectable anomalous traffic, and violate standard SI/SBLive poll terms. The practical consequence is vote removal from the tally.
• Paid outreach to real human voters — reaching additional genuine people who cast authentic votes from their own devices within permitted limits. Structurally, this is the same as a booster club email that reaches five hundred extra families — it is real fans voting through a different recruitment channel.

Whether paid outreach satisfies the spirit of SI's current poll terms is a judgement each participant should make after reading the active ballot page. The award carries no cash value and is not a regulated sweepstakes, so the risk is reputational rather than legal. Families and coaching staffs should weigh the recognition value of a statewide title against any concern about the method of vote mobilisation.

New Mexico softball Player of the Year season timeline

New Mexico softball runs as an NMAA spring sport, with practices beginning in February and the state tournament concluding in May. The High School on SI Player of the Year poll fits inside the final stretch of that calendar, opening as the season builds to its close. The table below maps the NMAA spring softball schedule to the award timeline.

Because the poll window falls inside a busy end-of-school-year period — AP exams, graduation, summer commitments — supporter mobilisation requires early activation. The most successful campaigns in narrow state-level polls launch their outreach on the same day the ballot goes live, not after monitoring for 48 hours. A two-day head start in a five-to-seven-day window can be decisive, especially when small-class rural schools with cohesive communities push hard from the opening hour.

For other fan-voted contests in New Mexico prep sports, visit the New Mexico contest hub. For the full directory of state-level sports fan polls across the country, explore the USA guide index.