Lady Braves heading in on 13-game winning streak
ESPAÑOLA — Heading north through town on the main drag lined with stores and fast food restaurants, a right turn onto Fairview Lane takes you down a narrow paved road due east toward the foothills that serve as the border of this Northern New Mexico community.
Along the way, you’ll pass turnouts like Bonecutter Lane and El Camino Real. But keep going. Ahead is a cream-colored water tower atop those barren foothills, a sign that something of significance lies just beyond the leafless trees that line both sides of Fairview. Before long, a large cinderblock building peeks out from behind those gray branches, its blazing red trim a stark contrast to the natural colors that surround it.
There, at the intersection of Fairview and El Llano Road, is the campus of Española Valley High School and its overwhelming centerpiece, Edward Medina Gymnasium. It’s in that building where thousands of people converge several nights each winter to root for the basketball teams that are the heart and soul of this place’s sports universe.
For the school’s boys team, it has been a place of wonder and excitement. The Sundevils have won two state titles this decade and are a prohibitive favorite to add a third by the end of the week.
For the girls, it’s a place that has seen more downs than ups the last few years. Turnover at the top has created a constant air of change with the leadership of the program.
After three years of stability under Cindy Roybal, the Lady Sundevils fell into the hands of Johnny Abeyta after Roybal took them to the state semifinals each of the last three seasons. Abeyta was placed on paid leave in late January, making way for the team’s sixth coach since 2012.
“The girls here have gone through a lot,” said interim coach Bobby Romero. “Getting this team back to the tournament is just what we need, I think.”
Seeded No. 7 in the Class 5A draw, Española will face No. 2 Bloomfield on Tuesday afternoon in The Pit. The winner moves into Thursday’s semifinals.
Simply getting this far is something of an accomplishment for this club. Devoid of any kind of post presence, the Lady Sundevils rely on guards to create shots from the outside and crash the lane to get looks down low. Together they face long odds of getting past Bloomfield into the next round. None of that seems to matter, either. “We’re just going down there for us,” said team captain Kaylinn Chavez. “We’ve come together as a team and we’re just playing for everyone on the team. That’s it.”
For Romero, this week has special meaning. The program’s junior varsity coach when Abeyta was sent packing, he has run all three levels of the program since the final week of January.
“I can’t even guess how many hours I put in every week,” he said. “Three practices a day, three teams playing games at different times, three rosters of girls with parents and all the questions and worries; it’s more work than I’ve ever done.”
Romero had a bird’s eye view of Española basketball last year. He and his wife were ticket holders to the Lady Sundevils’ run to the final four in The Pit.
“I remember sitting there and telling her that I was going to coach a game in that place one day,” Romero said. “I just didn’t think it would be this year, right now. I didn’t think it would happen this fast.”
With him in charge, the team has won eight of nine games and captured the District 2-5A regular season and tournament titles, as well as an opening-round win over Belen to start the state tournament.
“Our last coach, it was hard,” Chavez said. “We’re having more fun now with [Romero]. We always kind of got along, but now everyone just seems happier. We work as a team more than we did under [Abeyta].”
Exactly where that leads is anyone’s guess, but at least this much is certain: Medina Gym is once again a place where basketball has more to do with winning games and making people happy than a place of unrest and constant strife.
“But that’s the thing about Sundevils basketball,” Romero said. “There’s always a lot going on.”