Former RRHS guard Laura Gutierrez eclipses 1,000-point mark in college

There’s another Rio Rancho basketball player that has 1,000 career points.

She is former Rio Rancho High School guard Laura Gutierrez, who eclipsed the 1,000-point mark Friday, Feb.23, in Colorado Mesa’s 67-28 rout at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas.

By season, Gutierrez scored 230 points in her first season, 2019-20, at Adams State in Alamosa, Colorado. The next season, she scored 164 points for the Grizzlies, and just about duplicated that, with 163, the next season at Adams State.

In 2022-23, her first season at Colorado Mesa in Grand Junction, she posted a career-high 239 points.

Now, after 11 points, which included three 3-pointers, through the game at NMHU, she has 1,002.

Also notching thousand-point marks this season locally have been Cleveland High senior Daniel Steverson and Rio Rancho High School senior Jayden Johnson.

During her days with the Rams, Gutierrez helped them make the final four as a junior, and then as far as the quarterfinals as a senior. Each year, any dreams of a state championship were derailed by Hobbs.

It was a shot she made as a sophomore that former Rams coach Scott Peterson won’t forget.

In his second season at the helm, he still remembers Gutierrez’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer on Feb. 25, 2017, giving the

Rams a 38-36 win over Cibola in the District 1-6A tournament title game.

Lori Mabrey, a former Rams assistant and now the head coach, was Cibola’s head coach that night.

She remembered that shot in the RAC.

“Congratulations to her on her success in college,” Mabrey said.

“I’ve always known Laura was a special player,” Peterson told the Observer last week. “But when she hit the game-winning shot against Cibola to win our first of two district championships, everyone else figured it out too.

“Laura gave me her heart every game,” he added. “I love that kid.”

The Rams got the 8 seed that season, but it ended with a first-round 45-40 loss to visiting Volcano Vista.

Gutierrez graduated from Colorado Mesa in 2023, with two bachelor’s degrees (business management and sports marketing) and is on track to receive her master’s degree in sports management in May, seeking a career in that field.