SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
It won’t be “45 minutes to Broadway” as the song says, but it will be approximately 45 minutes each way from Santa Fe to Rio Rancho Cleveland when the New Year rings in Thursday, and on Saturday, it’s the Storm boys riding up to Capital, and their girls playing host to the Jaguars, with all of these scheduled for 7 p.m. starts.
Storm athletic director Matt Martinez often drove the school bus when he spent a lengthy time in the same role at Pojoaque Valley, but not this time. No matter, it will still be the respective school buses heading up and down I-25 when the Demon boys make the trip to Cleveland, and the Storm girls ride to Santa Fe High.
Saturday, it’s the same traveling, except that it’s Cleveland riding up to Capital High and the Jaguar girls
busing down to the Storm.
Can’t recall this happening before, and Martinez hasn’t been with the Rio Rancho school long enough to know the answer. But he does know that Cleveland is about five miles closer to the City Different than is Rio Rancho High School.
Both boys games match three 5A schools that rank near the top of the big-school standings, with the Storm undefeated in 10 starts and ranked second behind unbeaten Albuquerque Volcano Vista (8-0), the Jaguars at 10-1and ranked fourth, and the 10-2 Demons ranked fifth.
In last year’s state tournament final, Santa Fe High lost to Albuquerque Atrisco Heritage with a remarkable run after its best player, 6-foot-7 Foneda “JB” White, became sidelined for the remainder of the season after injuring his knee in a non district game at Clovis.
Now White is back and remains his team’s most valuable player as he is top of the heap in scoring, rebounding and shot blocking. His team’s lone loss was to district and cross-town rival Capital in the final of the annual Al Armendariz tournament played at the Jaguars’ court. The Jags’ lone defeat was a week earlier when they lost to Santa Fe High in the title game of the annual Bobby Rodriguez/Capital City played at the Demons’ court.
In regard to Clovis, which is 8-3, Cleveland’s boys had a tough opener there in an exciting contest that went down to the final buzzer when Martinez, with the Storm girls not playing until the next day up in Santa Fe, hopped the school bus for the 3-hour ride.
Now his girls have gone from a 7-0 start to three-straight setbacks. But they still rate ahead of the Demonettes and Jaguars. Capital is presently 5-5 and did not play in any holiday tournaments and Santa Fe High is 6-7 after last winning via a 2-0 forfeit over Raton in the Lady Horsemen seventh place game, with the Tigers deciding not to make the 3-hour trip after an overnight snow storm up there made for poor road conditions.
Also on Thursday night, the St. Michael’s boys, at 5-5, take a ride to winless non district opponent East Mountain, which as lost all of its nine starts. In a girl’s non district contest up at Los Alamos (5-7), it’s winless Belen (0-11) making the trip.
Friday, two non district boys games are on the slate when Shiprock (3-7) visits West Las Vegas (2-4) and Socorro (5-3) plays at Robertson (7-3).
Saturday, two non district boys games pair Belen (5-7) at Los Alamos (1-9) and Cuba (3-5) at WLV. Then there are a pair of girl’s non district contests when the Hilltoppers play host to Farmington (8-3) and Espanola Valley, winner of the Lady Horsemen tournament, and at 7-5, is home to 7-4 Los Lunas.
