SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
Well, at least Martin Esquibel doesn’t have to drive the bus.
Otherwise, the second-year head coach of the St. Michael’s basketball girls is short-handed and preparing for some heavy travel. Tonight, he opens District 2-3A play at Raton.
Tomorrow afternoon, he has a non district game at Albuquerque Sandia Prep, which is a make-up game after two contests were not played via the nasty weather cancellation of the Lady Horsemen Holiday tournament.
“Well,” he said, “the Raton team is okay, but we don’t take anything for granted, and we already beat Sandia Prep, and this is a make-up game for us, but again, we don’t take anyone for granted, especially on the road.”
As for being short-handed, he’s got to go without sophomore starter Stella Valencia as she and her family will be in Mexico for the weekend. And senior point guard Cia Alvarez is in her first day back after being sidelined for 10 days after suffering a concussion in the one-point loss to Santa Fe High.
“I’ll have to shuffle the lineup,” Esquibel said. “There’s Stella to replace at forward, and Cia hasn’t had any contact and not much practice, so we need to have another point guard to run things.”
That point guard could be 8th grader Lauryn Pecos, who goes 5-foot-5 and Esquibel said she’s really coming along well despite being an 8th grader. As for the forward position, the Lady Horsemen start 5-7 senior Joelyn Fernandez and the coach will call on either 5-7 freshman Taryn Aguilar, 5-7 freshman Claire Patten or 5-5 sophomore Francis Schneider.
And he’s glad to have 5-6 junior Carisa Padilla along as the shooting guard. She’s been scoring in double figures every game, she’s good off the boards, and is also a good passer. In rebounds, in fact, she’s taken down seven per game.
“Patten is young and a good rebounder,” Esquibel said. “And Schneider and Aguilar have done well in practices. As for Fernandez, she’s been scoring in double figures every game, plus she’s our best defender.”
You can say that St. Michael’s has been on a rollercoaster ride. It has had some close wins and close losses. It got to 5-3, but then came the ties at 5-5,
6-6, 7-7, and currently the team is at 8-8. So a win tonight could at least get the Lady Horsemen over .500. They were at 8-7 after getting past Albuquerque Academy, but then lost, 59-57, to the Demonettes.
They also had a tough go with Deming before losing 52-50, and in the win column, they got by Bernalillo, 39-37, and Valencia, 40-35.
So that’s it for now, but the team will have to go from the night game at Raton to the Saturday 3:30 p.m. contest in Albuquerque.
But for Esquibel, he’ll leave the driving to the driver, for he’s got enough to do.
