Española’s playing Saturday for second title in three years
Sundevils face Belen today in The Pit for second title in 3 years
ESPAÑOLA — Every family has its fights, and the storm brewing inside the Española Valley boys basketball program is a doozy.
At the center of it all is AZ Salazar, one of eight seniors who dot a roster that’s just one win shy of a third state championship since 2011. The Sundevils will face Belen in the Class 5A state championship game Saturday afternoon in The Pit.
Win or lose, the debate behind the scenes is almost as intense as the passionate fan base that makes Española Valley one of the most feared (and revered) programs in the state.
“Look, AZ’s my friend, but he’s lying,” says fellow senior Martin Gracia. “He’s lying. He’s just making up stories to make himself look bigger.”
It’s Gracia’s assertion that it was he, not his pal Salazar, who invented the team’s postseason tradition of getting designs shaved into the sides of their hair. As Salazar describes it, he hatched the plan his sophomore year just before Española embarked on its 2016 title run.
“All I can say is my barber even has a name for it,” he says. “He calls it ‘The AZ’. If you
walk into his place and ask for an AZ; you’ll get this.”
He points to the side of his dome, in which there is an aerodynamic Z shaved into the short strands of black hair just above his ear. A number of other teammates have a similar design, Gracia included.
Guard JP Sena gives credit to Salazar for the idea and even backed up the story about little kids sporting the look around town. He did, however, shoot down the suggestion that maybe he buzz the side of his locks with an AZ this weekend.
“I’m not built for that kind of thing,” he says. “That’s his thing, not mine.”
All things considered, if that’s the worst thing the Sundevils have to worry about, then they really have nothing to worry about.
The seniors on the team have such remarkable chemistry that this season has been smooth sailing despite the offseason drama that seems to permeate the program on an annual basis.
With just one game left in their time together, the group that started off at rival elementary schools, morphed into two separate AAU teams and then became a singular unit once they reached high school, is embracing what little time they have remaining.
Cameron Martinez said the players who saw one another as rivals growing up are more of a brotherhood these days.
Over the years they’ve developed memories that range from the high of a state title two years ago to the lows of coaching comings and goings. In between were moments like a playoff loss to Del Norte in which two of the seniors said they could feel the crowd’s noise make the floor shake during a second half fast break.
“I don’t think there’s a way to really describe what it’s like to play in Española,” senior Scotty Alexander said. “It’s normal to us. We come out and all the seats are full, the place gets so loud — that’s just the way it is to be a player here.”
Sena recalls the parade the team got for winning state a couple of years ago.
“The amount of people that lined both sides of the street and waved at the bus was amazing,” he said.
“It’s hard to explain the way people feel about basketball here, especially if they’ve never been here and seen it themselves. It’s surprising to anyone, I’m sure.”
Vigil was a grade school kid at McCurdy when the Sundevils won the state championship in 2011, the first in school history.
“I’d come with my friends and sit in the front row, watching these guys run around like they were celebrities,” he says. “I’d talk about how cool it would be to do that when we got big. Now, what, all these years later here we are.”
The hero worship has officially gone full circle. Vigil says he was at a store recently when a grade school kid he’d never met came up to him and said he was his favorite player.
“It kind makes you think twice about some of the things you do, knowing little kids like that are looking at every move you make and wanting to be you,” he says.
That responsibility has put a burden on the seniors to play the role of hero, of mentor and role model. It has also kept them close, knowing everyone on the team has a specific part in the big picture.
“Some of these seniors had to sacrifice a lot to be here,” starting point guard Christian Fernandez says. “They sacrificed playing time and things like that. It’s hard to do sometimes, but it’s things like that that are what it takes to win a state championship. It’s really a team thing and we’re almost there.”
It makes issues like haircuts a reminder of just how good the team has it.
If that’s the worst thing they have, life is truly good.
“There’s arguments and stuff like that,” Salazar says, “but that’s the way families are. We’re a family and, yeah, sometimes we can have fights about my idea for starting ‘The AZ’ because, you know, it’s mine.”
Let the controversy begin.