When you head to your job, you know you will have a level playing field. How would you feel if every day you went to work, you were at a disadvantage? For freshman women’s basketball player Brandi Valencia, that is her day.

Valencia, who hails from Moriarty, N.M., 40 miles outside of Albuquerque, decided to be a Roadrunner with her twin sister Kristin. The twins have played basketball together since the first grade.

“I like playing with her a lot, because we know each other,” Brandi Valencia said. “Even if we mess up we get on each other, but that’s how we are, it would be totally weird not playing with her.”

So how did two girls from a small town in New Mexico arrive at Auraria Campus?

“They offered me and Kristin a scholarship, and our uncle lives here so we would have family here,” Valencia said.

Valencia, who stands 5-foot-10, is Metro’s starting center and has to deal with the opponents’ center. Not that it is new to her.

“In high school I was the tallest on my team, so I guarded taller people,” Valencia said.

Metro women's basketball player Brandi Valencia. Photo by Will Morgan

Now she plays Division II basketball, which means guarding players like Regis’ Salina Kipers who stands 6 feet 5, or CCU’s 6 feet 1 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference leading rebounder Abby Rosenthal night in and night out. Every day in practice the coaches work with her on defense and positioning which makes up for the size disadvantage.

“In college they are so much better, and physical. I got used to it but it’s hard because they are so much stronger, [than high school],” Valencia said.

Early in her collegiate career, she was averaging just over five points per game. The new year brought new beginnings for Valencia and Metro. As she found her scoring touch, the Roadrunners have needed her points down to the stretch. She has led the team in scoring five different times and had a stretch of scoring in double-figures 11-of-12 games. She now averages 9.1 points per game and shoots just over 44 percent from the field. She also leads the team in free throws.

“In the first half we did have Ray [Bean] and Jalyssa [Caesar] and I didn’t have to score, but they left and I had to be more aggressive and the coaches told me to as well,” Valencia said.

As for her future goals at Metro, she wants to win an Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championship, which could still happen this year since they play Fort Lewis March 5 in the RMAC Shootout quarterfinals. When not playing basketball, Valencia is a very good volleyball player, and she was part of two state championship teams in high school.