Española falls apart on offense in loss to Belen
Sundevils held without field goal in third quarter before packed, friendly Pit crowd
ALBUQUERQUE — The largest crowd to file into The Pit for a University of New Mexico men’s basketball game this season was 13,207 when national powerhouse Arizona came calling back in December.
On Saturday afternoon, a crowd numbering about 14,000 — all of them packed into the lower bowl since the luxury suites were off limits — was on hand to watch the Española Valley boys go for a third state title in eight years against Belen.
It took about two minutes for Garrett Gallegos to keep most of those fans in their seats for a while. The Belen senior hit three 3-pointers early on to stake the Eagles to a 9-0 mark, a lead they would hold most of the way en route to a 73-65 win in Saturday’s Class 5A state championship game.
“He told me he was going to heat check at the start of the game,” said Belen head coach Andrew Dunnell. “I have a lot of trust in this guy.”
Gallegos finished his day with 22 points and half a dozen treys to send most of The Pit crowd home mumbling about missed opportunities. Namely, the third quarter. “It felt good,” Gallegos said. “I got an open look, hit one and then I just kind of put up another one and it felt good.”
Up 37-33 at halftime, the top-seeded Sundevils (28-2) answered their 60 percent shooting in the first half with an 0-for-11, four-turnover third quarter in which Belen outscored them 17-3 with all three of their points coming at the free throw line.
“Well,” said Española Valley head coach James Branch as he absorbed the information in the postgame news conference. “That’s the ballgame. I didn’t even know that. I didn’t even realize that. You’re not going to win many games if you can’t make a field goal.”
Down 10 in the first half thanks to the hot hand of Gallegos, the Sundevils rallied back for the lead at the break. It sent the fans, who were seen standing two- and threedeep in the standing room area along the concourse into a frenzy. It raised the decibel to places no Lobo game ever did this season.
“It was fun to be in that,” Belen forward Matthew Padilla said afterward.
As if unable to sustain the emotional energy from
halftime into the third quarter, Española came out as flat in the second half as their defense did on Gallegos in the first few minutes of the game. It was another 3, this one from Uriah Zengerly, that gave the Eagles a 40-37 lead midway through the quarter that turned out to be the game winner.
Belen never trailed again, building an 11-point lead before the end of the period.
“I hadn’t seen us struggle offensively that much all season,” Branch said.
A wild, twisting fast break layup by Christian Fernandez in the first 30 seconds of the fourth quarter seemed to spark life into the Sundevils’ attack. It was their first basket of the second half and kick-started a 12-3 run that made it 53-51 in the final five minutes.
And that was as good as it got. Belen got 3-pointers from Gallegos and Zengerly down the stretch, not to mention eight points from the free throw line. It was more than enough as it was coupled with three Sundevils fouling out.
Donnell, who won a state title as a player at Manzano in 2006 and now as a rookie head coach with the Eagles, said he had a dream Friday night that told him the Eagles would win Saturday’s game by eight points.
“I’m not even making that up,” he said.
The Sundevils had three players in double figures, led by 15 from JP Sena. Fernandez had 14, Ryan Trujillo 12 and AZ Salazar 10.
They shot just 28 percent in the second half and would up giving away 10 3-point shots to the Eagles offense that had four players score all but six of their 73 points. Ryan Garcia added 19 points and Zengerly 16 with 10 rebounds.
“I didn’t really coach today,” Dunnell said. “They couldn’t hear me anyways. It was these guys coaching themselves, playing basketball.”
GAME NOTES
The Sundevils were one of the top free throw shooting teams all season, but missed nine tries from the charity stripe Saturday. That included three misses with the game still on the line in the fourth quarter. … Gallegos and Zengerly had all 10 of Belen’s 3-pointers. No one on Española’s roster had more than one. … Belen held a 36-27 edge on the glass. They did, however, turn it over 17 times, five of which came in the fourth quarter when the Sundevils made their last-ditch rally. … It was Belen’s first state championship.