Senior Lady Sundevils eye final chance at state title
Some Lady Sundevil stalwarts see final chance at title; Gallup once again stands in the way
Alexis Lovato was just an eighth-grader, but she already knew about the lofty expectations placed upon her shoulders.
Lovato was part of a group of freshmen and eighth-graders that many in the Española community saw as the future of Española Valley’s girls basketball program when the 2012-13 season commenced. They viewed the collection of freshmen Kaitlyn Romero, Ashlynn Trujillo and Kayla Salazar, plus middle schoolers Lovato and Leah DeAguero as the backbone of a state championship-caliber team.
For the next five years, the Lady Sundevils displayed regular-season excellence but March success was muted. Española either won or shared a district regular-season title, a district tournament crown or both each year. The program went 116-29 in that stretch, with appearances in the Class 5A semifinals the past two seasons.
But the opportunity to play for a blue trophy kept eluding the Lady Sundevils. It’s the one thing that Lovato and DeAguero would love to have to end their sterling careers. They get one more shot at that Tuesday night in The Pit, when No. 3 Española takes on a program that has been a thorn in its side for the past three state tournaments — the 11th-seeded Gallup Lady Bengals in a 5A quarterfinal at 8:15.
“District titles are just district titles,” Lovato said. “We’ve been training since we were little and playing together to bring home a blue trophy.”
Gallup is responsible for the end of the Lady Sundevils’ season for the past three Marches, with the last two happening in the semifinals. While this Gallup team is not the juggernaut like the previous three iterations, Española head coach Cindy Roybal did not pass on the opportunity to set a goal in the Lady Sundevils’ minds.
“I put on the whiteboard the steps we had to take, and I wrote Gallup big and [Albuquerque] St. Pius like this,” Roybal said, with her fingers a couple of centimeters apart. “Who do you think I thought was going to win?”
That came true when the Lady Bengals beat the No. 6 Lady Sartans 54-44 in the opening round, offering Española one more shot at vanquishing the ghosts of state tournaments’ past. Perhaps the most frustrating loss was in 2016, when Gallup shut down a highpowered Lady Sundevils offense in a 53-33 win.
That was the last game for Romero as she graduated, but
Española only had three of the group of five left on the team. Ashlynn Trujillo transferred to Los Alamos after her sophomore year as her dad, Nestor Trujillo, took the head coaching job there. A year later, Salazar joined Trujillo in Los Alamos.
In their places came Brenda Garduño, a 5-8 forward who became a valuable post player;
Alycia Archibeque, a 5-4 guard who has played on the varsity since she was a freshman; and Annalynn Martinez, a 5-7 forward whose contributions over the past month have been invaluable.
Still, the expectations didn’t change. As the quintet headed into their senior year, the pressure to win a state title was ever-present.
It was the motivational tool the
Lady Sundevils used when they found themselves down 24-19 late in the third quarter of their first-round game against Aztec. Española rallied with a 16-6 run to win 35-30, thanks to 16 points from DeAguero
“Us seniors, we were pretty sad,” DeAguero said. “We were
like, ‘Guys, this is it.’ That third quarter, when [the Lady Tigers] hit back-to-back 3s to tie it [at 17-all], it was like, ‘This is serious. We could go home.’ ”
Going into the season, though, talk about the Lady Sundevils was relatively quiet heading into October. Roswell, the defending 5A champion, grabbed much of the attention, while Los Lunas continued to demonstrate its stellar play under head coach Marty Zeller.
When Española started the season 5-4, it appeared those opinions were justified. However, three of those losses came to 6A Carlsbad, Albuquerque Eldorado and Las Cruces to go with a still inexplicable 45-44 loss to Valencia after beating the Lady Jaguars 73-49 just three days prior.
Roybal, though, felt those early season losses prepared the Lady Sundevils, and they went 15-2 the rest of the season. Of their six losses, four came against 6A teams that were seeded in the top 8 of that bracket (Rio Rancho beat the Lady Sundevils 54-44 in February).
“I don’t think people were thinking that highly of us [before the season],” Roybal said. “But we knew all along what we could do. It’s exciting to be going down there [to The Pit]. We’ve won three straight district regularseason and tournament titles, and nobody is talking about us.”
Now, the seniors’ quest to fulfill those lofty dreams comes down to winning three games in four days. It begins with the team the Lady Sundevils so badly want to beat. They beat Gallup 74-66 in Edward Medina Gymnasium in January, but this is the moment when a win matters the most.
“We’re fired up, we’re really fired up,” DeAguero said. “We want this.”
Still, it’s just one step toward lifting the weight of five years of expectations.