12-seeded Volcano Vista evolving into special story
You never know at a state basketball tournament what events will transpire to shuttle a team from Point A to Point B to Point C. And, for the Volcano Vista Hawks, to Point D.
Tonight at 8 inside the Pit, Volcano Vista’s boys will play for the Class 6A state championship.
There are about a thousand sentences like that one that I could not have imagined writing when the state tournament began a week ago. I would put that one right up there with, “The Española Valley fans sat silently throughout.”
Volcano Vista in a final, even knowing what we know of Rio Rancho last year? This, to me, was inconceivable. Couldn’t happen two years in a row, right?
There were five Rio West teams in the boys 16-team field. I would have given three of those other four a better chance to play in the season’s final game than Volcano Vista.
Cleveland? Sure. The Storm was a 3 seed. Athletic, quick, confident, poised. Ready to break through.
Rio Rancho? Of course. The defending state champions, seeded fifth, had everybody back from its title run a year ago and were heating up in late February. Timing is supposed to be everything. It ain’t.
Cibola? A stretch, perhaps, but not out of the realm to have seen the sixth-seeded Cougars win a couple of games this week and be in the season’s last game, not the way that team shoots the ball. But Volcano Vista? The 12 seed? No way. But look where we are now, boys and girls. The Hawks are 32 minutes from raising a blue trophy on Bob King Court.
It’s shake-your-head comical, the irony at work here.
What Rio Rancho did last year and what Volcano Vista is doing this week has, in a way, almost invalidated the entire seeding process, at least in this particular division.
The parallels between the Hawks and the 2016 Rio Rancho Rams are eerily similar.
Rio Rancho is a 12-loss team that dropped five consecutive games before going into state as an 11 seed. Volcano Vista is a 12-loss team that lost six out of seven when this postseason began seven days ago. Both these teams were going in reverse.
So, just how did Volcano Vista arrive here? Hard work, talent, persistence and perhaps the teency, weency-ist bit of divine intervention. Think about how it’s unfolded. The Hawks were inside Rio Rancho’s gym last Saturday night for a first-round playoff game. There is 1 second left in the fourth quarter and Rio Rancho’s Derrick Reyes is standing at the free-throw lane in a tie game with two shots.
One make and it’s the Rams who are in the Pit this week, while the Hawk athletes would today be dressing out in their spring sports uniforms.
So what happens? Reyes — a terrific multi-sport athlete and, in my experience, a really good kid — misses both free throws.
The game goes to overtime. Volcano Vista sees its best player, senior forward David Cormier, foul out. And the Hawks still won.
Even after all of that, I still found it doubtful that Volcano Vista could walk down that ramp and win two more games and make it to tonight.
In Wednesday’s quarterfinals, the Hawks befuddled No. 4 seed Eldorado, winning 45-44 on a late free throw by Cormier and holding the Eagles 21 points under their season average. On Thursday in the semifinals, with Jorell Phillips and Andres Vigil firing from long range with the accuracy of Steph Curry, they held off an Atrisco Heritage bunch that I thought was the superior shooting team to Volcano Vista.
But what happens? The Hawks go 7-for-11 from the arc, the Jaguars go 3-for16, and the result is a 49-45 victory for Volcano Vista.
Next up for Volcano Vista (17-12) is No. 2 Las Cruces (27-4). The Bulldawgs have won nine in a row. I wrote this before the playoffs, and I’ll say it again: Las Cruces was playing better basketball than anybody in 6A as the state tournament began. What does that mean for tonight? Zero. This is a coin-flip game. For Volcano Vista, the opponent almost was Cleveland.
The Bulldawgs eliminated Cleveland, 47-45, on Thursday night. The loss left many of the Storm players in tears. Besides the excruciating pain of this individual loss, I suspect they also felt this tournament was there (perhaps theirs?) for the taking.
“We’ll be back here,” Cleveland coach Sean Jimenez promised. “And we’ll win a blue trophy.”
It’s losses like that one that remind everyone just how difficult it is just to get into a championship game, whether you are a 3 seed like Cleveland or a 12 like Volcano Vista.
Yes, it defies logic that the Hawks have made it this far. Doesn’t matter. The state tournament, our state tournament, is special and a story like this — win or lose tonight for the Hawks — adds to its overall legend.
And if Volcano Vista somehow manages to cap this run with another win tonight, they will have looked out at the rest of the state and dropped the proverbial mic to the ground.