45-42 loss for the visiting Capital girls

Turnovers and dismal second half free throws turned into a 45-42 loss for the visiting Capital girls as Espanola Valley won its fourth-straight District 2-5A championship Friday night Sundevils are automatically a state tournament
entry while the Jaguars hope to also get an invite

By Arnie Leshin

The Capital High girls committed 30 turnovers, converted only 6-of-17 second half free throws, held host Espanola Valley to 3-for-31 from the field in the first half, and allowed the opening basket and the closing one as the teams competed for the District 2-5A tournament championship Friday night.

Statistics, only statistics, because when the final buzzer sounded, the defending-champion Sundevils came away with a 45-42 comeback win for their fourth-straight district title.

As first-year Capital head coach Darren Casados told his players after the game, “We played 31 of the 32 minutes, and I told them we had to play the while game. Espanola, they hung around, and their shots started falling.”

Casados, who has done a remarkable job of guiding the girls to a 14-14 record and second place in district, was optimistic after Espanola freshman Destiny Valdez’ 3-pointer that began the scoring. He remained that way until the final minutes.

With 3:39 remaining, his Jaguars, despite 10 turnovers in the quarter, maintained a 39-33 lead on 6-foot freshman Ethena Silva’s layup. But then came the dismal foul shooting. In the first half, they made 6-of-7, but now junior Deanza Booker only added to their miserable second half freebies.

She missed the front end of the 1-and-1 and Espanola began to chip away.
And the Sundevils (16-10) also had their problems. They missed 52 of their 64 field goal attempts against the Capital pressure defense, and did not lead since the opening 3.

But they could thank the Jaguar misfortunes from the charity stripe to allow them to hang around before their enthusiastic faithful in a contest that almost filled the Edward Medina Memorial gymnasium. The teams had split their two previous game, with Capital winning on the road and losing later at home.

And with 1:07 left, it remained close, with the Jags up 40-35, 5-3 junior Kaylee Chavez tossed in her first of four 3s to cut the deficit to two. But Capital junior Audrey Gonzales made good on a pair of freebies, something her teammates failed to do as they began the second half by missing all six tries.

But Gonzales, who fouled out shortly after, at least found the range. Except that Chavez answered back with a rather long 3 and her side was down 42-41. Then 5-3 senior Kaylinn Martinez stepped to the line and, made two, and now Espanola had a one-point advantage with 30 seconds to go.

But the Jaguars couldn’t respond. As the clocked ticked down, they twice threw the ball away, and the Sundevils’ Meranda Salazar upped the lead to 44-42. Then Silva, who led her team with 16 points and nine rebounds, brought down the rebound, but her pass to junior Miranda Cortez went out of bounds.

And when Martinez was fouled with 6.4 seconds remaining, she made the first of a 1-and-1 and the rally was complete. Martinez finished with a team-high 17 points. Her team trailed at halftime, 25-20, and had itself to blame by making only 6-of-26 shots from the floor.

But in the second half, it tossed in seven 3s, four by Chavez, and by closing out the game on a 12-2 run, it spoiled a game run by Capital, which lost leading scorer Kyannah Cole to a knee injury in the final week of the regular season, and hadn’t gotten this far in a decade.

And Casados took over the team when Jonathan Salazar resigned not long after he was hired.

Not only was Silva putting together a quality effort, 5-9 senior Isahara Sorensen did the same with 10 points, six rebounds, six steals, and hustled throughout the hard-fought contest. But the Jags’ 3-point shooting brought only two connections, even though they held a 20-7 first half lead.
Now the teams await Sunday’s New Mexico Activities Association brackets and seeding. Sixteen schools would make it in each class, and the Jaguars are right in that final spot. Espanola is in the No. 11 position after automatically gaining a berth.

The Jaguars would like nothing more than getting invited to the state tournament. They’ll have to travel, but they haven’t done that in the post-season in quite some time, and wouldn’t mind hitting the road.