Dismantling of District 4-6A marks end of era
You know you’ve reached the important part of a high school basketball season when the fans are yelling at officials almost as much as the coaches.
Which brings us, in a lightning-quick segue, to District 4-6A, one of the most entertaining and wildly competitive boys districts I’ve covered in my career. As most of you already know, this district is being scuttled next season.
“That is a shame. They’ve done this district wrong,” longtime Albuquerque High boys coach Ron Garcia lamented.
This quote came after AHS won a contentious overtime road game at West Mesa last week. A good number of the humans in that gym, including the head coaches,
seemed equally agitated and exhilarated, if that’s even possible.
That’s the thread, and threat, of emotion that the basketball in this district extracts every winter.
There are, obviously, some wonderful rivalries in the area — Cibola-Volcano Vista, La Cueva-Eldorado, Rio RanchoCleveland and St. PiusAcademy on top of the list — but no district produces more intense basketball, and more verbally engaged crowds, than District 4-6A.
It’s the one 6A district in town in which individual communities factor so heavily into the equation. This does not apply to the Northeast Heights schools of District 2 and it applies to a far lesser degree to the Rio Rancho/West Side dynamic of District 1.
Yes, Valley and Highland will still be district rivals for the next two seasons, but in another classification. Yes, AHS and Rio Grande will remain in the same league, too. But Atrisco Heritage and West Mesa are being split into two other districts, much to their chagrin.
“I think it’s a travesty,” Garcia said. His opinion is shared — probably close to unanimously — by all the coaches and fans and administrators of those six schools.
“It’s sad we won’t be able to have that type of environment, these types of rivalries,” Atrisco boys coach Adrian Ortega said.
There are a couple of things to remember. First, most of these teams are still going to be playing one another, albeit outside the district bubble. These rivalries are just going to be redefined for the time being. No way would cash-strapped Albuquerque Public Schools exclude some of these extremely well attended rivalry games — like ValleyAHS, West Mesa-Atrisco and Valley-Atrisco, to name just three — from their master schedule. Right?
Second, keep in mind that districts are constantly in flux in New Mexico. This group of schools could someday be reunited.
Personally speaking, I hope they will. The six of them, they’re like quarreling siblings under one proverbial roof who can never stop fighting.
We are going to miss them sharing one address. CHANGE OF SCENERY: While we focus (correctly) on Cibola and West Mesa as the metro’s two strongest girls basketball threats at the March Class 6A state tournament, Rich Harbin says Eldorado probably deserves to elbow into the conversation. “I feel we are in that mix, too,” he said.
His first season coaching the Eagles has yielded a 14-5 record and a District 2-6A-leading 5-0 mark.
And seeing as how Eldorado has burned through four coaches just in the last couple of years, the transition to Harbin has been a pleasantly smooth ride for the Eagles.
“It was a huge advantage going from our previous coach to coach Harbin,” senior guard Vivian Chavez said. “He holds us accountable.”
Harbin had 13 mostly terrific seasons at Valley before leaving for Eldorado last March.
“I think we struggled at the beginning, and we were taking slow steps,” Harbin said. “Now, they are starting to get the things we are stressing. At this point right now, we are where we hoped (we’d) be.”
Eldorado has two losses to Cibola, two to Rio Rancho and a fifth to 5A power Los Lunas.
This week, the Eagles hope to finally get Catessa Duran onto the floor. Duran, a four-year varsity player, has missed most of the season with a broken finger. CHANGE OF SCENERY,
PART II: Coach Elmer Chavez’s move from Santa Fe High to Mescalero Apache has him in line to perhaps win a state championship with a second school.
Chavez guided Santa Fe High to the Class 4A title in 2014 and coached the Demonettes the following season. Then he retired. And a few days later, he was hired at Mescalero Apache, a school along U.S. 70 about halfway between Ruidoso and Tularosa.
“Originally, I just planned to come here for a year … but I like it down here,” Chavez said. Last week, he earned the 400th victory of his coaching career. “We’ve got a lot of natives, and they’re great, great athletes.”
Mescalero Apache is 20-1 this season and ranked No. 1 in Class 2A. The school has never been to a state championship game before, but their coach has.
And Chavez believes the Lady Chiefs could be primed for a lengthy run, with just a single senior on the roster.
“We’re hoping to get two or three (state championships) in a row here,” he said. One of the templates he followed in Mescalero was to immediately begin working with girls in grades 6-8. That, he said, was what he did in Santa Fe.
And everything could work out next month — IF they don’t cross paths with Fort Sumner. The Vixens beat Mescalero Apache in last year’s state quarterfinals, and the Vixens are the only team to beat the Lady Chiefs this season.
THIS AND THAT: Coach Joe Reed’s Piedra Vista girls squad has dropped two of its first three District 1-6A games and is in fourth place in that league, meaning the Panthers (18-3 overall) are well on their way to becoming a doubledigit seed for the playoffs. … Unfortunately, Cibola guard Cameron Dixon’s return to the Cougars’ lineup was shortlived. He re-injured that same left shoulder that kept him out most of January and he may miss the rest of the season. … Sandia Prep’s Samantha Jeffries, a 5-foot-9 sophomore, recorded a giant triple-double Tuesday night against East Mountain, with 33 points, 22 rebounds and a school-record 14 blocked shots.