King of Speed: 2025 Santa Fe WR moves closer to coronation

<p>2025 Santa Fe wide receiver <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='615514' first='Bryce' last='Melton']</strong> may have shut down all debate about who is the fastest high school football player in New Mexico.</p>   <p>Melton took a major step forward towards coronation as our 2023 ‘King of Speed' with a dominating performance Saturday during the state track and field championships at the University of New Mexico complex in Albuquerque.</p>   <p>Melton swept the Class 5A 100 and 200 meters, prevailing in the former by .20  seconds, an eternity in an event often decided by hundredths of a second, and the latter by .43 seconds.</p>   <p>“What's impressive about Bryce is he hadn't run track since he was in 8<sup>th</sup> grade,” Santa Fe head football coach Andrew Martinez told Prep Redzone Sunday. “He's still raw as a runner. He's still changing his style. He's just going to get faster and better as he gets older and more mature.”</p>   <p>Martinez's task now as Demons coach is figuring out ways to channel Melton's blazing speed onto the football field. Last season was Melton's first EVER playing football, so he faced a significant learning curve and had to learn the basic fundamentals of the game such as how to hold the football.</p>   <p>Melton showed flashes of his speed in 2022.   </p>   <p>“He's raw but he has good hands,” Martinez said. “He's committed to running routes better. When he gets as comfortable in football as he did on the track this spring, he's going to draw a lot of attention and open up some things for his teammates.</p>   <p>“He's also going to get a lot of opportunities, on and off the field. He's just scratching the surface as to how fast and how good he can be. As I told him, his speed to going to open a lot of doors for him in life.”     </p>   <p>Santa Fe struggled offensively to generate points throughout last season (SFHS was blanked 6 times) largely because of inconsistent play by multiple quarterbacks.</p>   <p>For 2023, though, Martinez said the Demons have focused on rising senior Michael Abeyta as  their starting QB. Abeyta suffered a season-ending ACL injury at Roswell in Week 2 last fall, and the Demons' offense never recovered.  </p>   <p>If Abeyta is able to stay healthy and stabilize the QB position for Santa Fe, Melton will benefit greatly. Santa Fe plans to participate in several 7x7 Jamborees, including one they host in June at Ivan Head Stadium.</p>   <p>“We were a revolving door at quarterback last season.” Martinez said. “Bryce and Michael have a good relationship. That will help Bryce. We want to get him on the perimeter and allow him to turn the corner. We know he's going to draw some attention. We're going to take some big shots with him.”</p>   <p>Melton wasn't the only New Mexico high school football player with eligibility remaining to excel at Saturday's 4A/5A track and field championships.    </p>   <p>2026 La Cueva WR <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='402251' first='Tanner' last='Montano']</strong>, who is weeks away from completing his ninth-grade year, finished second in both the 100 (10.95 seconds) and 200 (21.90). His track battles with Melton over the next two years should be highly entertaining.</p>   <p>Montano did take home one first-place medal in the long jump with a leap of 23 feet, 7.75 inches, beating former Cleveland QB and UNM signee [player_tooltip player_id='139521' first='Evan' last='Wysong'] by less than 5 inches.</p>   <p>Considering his size (6-foot-4, 200 pounds), 2024 La Cueva WR/TE <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='274718' first='Cruz' last='Markham']</strong> turned in one of the day's most impressive performances. Markham won the Class 5A 400-meter title in 49.05 seconds, the lone runner to break the 50-second barrier.</p>   <p>Markham also finished sixth in the 200 and was a key member of La Cueva's title winning foursomes in the 4x100 and 4x200 relays. Bears QB <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='611098' first='Cameron' last='Dyer']</strong> ran the second leg in the finals of the 4x200 relay and also finished fourth in the long jump.       </p>   <p>2024 Los Alamos WR <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='590222' first='Melaki' last='Gutierrez']</strong> swept the 100 and 200 titles in Class 4A, winning the 100 in 11.02 seconds, .07 seconds ahead of 2024 Artesia WR <strong>Juan Diego Duran</strong> (11.07).</p>   <p>Duran posted the best time in the 200 preliminaries but Gutierrez turned on the jets in the final, winning in a time of 21.31 seconds with Duran second in 22.03 seconds.</p>   <p>2025 Portales LB <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='613053' first='Manny' last='Chavez']</strong> (234 tackles in first two seasons with the varsity) won the Class 4A javelin throw. 2024 Cleveland LB <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='274701' first='Stratton' last='Shufelt']</strong>, our #1 prospect for the current recruiting cycle, won the 5A title in the shotput.</p>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/demons_football/status/1657465130907754496 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/demons_football/status/1657485059434360833 </div></figure>   <p>   </p>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/CruzMarkham/status/1657540383566610433 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/MelakiGutierrez/status/1657792010806231040 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/CoachWysong/status/1657551126672314368 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/camdyer7/status/1657552313354190848 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/_NMAA/status/1657117882378072064 </div></figure>   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/tannermontano7/status/1657897894014488576 </div></figure>

2025 Santa Fe wide receiver Bryce Melton Bryce Melton WR Santa Fe | 2025 NM may have shut down all debate about who is the fastest high school football player in New Mexico.