For the Española Valley High School Lady Sundevils, it was odd facing their former coach in the fourth game of the season.
They drew Santa Fe High School, Dec. 1, for the second round of the Al Armendariz Basketball Tournament at Capital High School, after losing to Goddard High School, Nov. 30, in the first round.
Cindy Roybal, who coached Española last season, sported a blue-and-yellow shirt, emblazoned with a Santa Fe logo.
For junior captains Kaylee Chavez and Kaylinn Martinez, seeing Roybal on the opposite end of the sidelines was one part confusing and one part strange.
“We would play and she’d be yelling, and we’d be like ‘What?’” Chavez said.
The game was close and scrappy. At the end of four quarters, the two teams were tied at 31 points.
Martinez made two free-throws, with 36 seconds left, to keep the Lady Sundevils in the game. In overtime, Chavez made the game-decider.
Her layup gave the Lady Sundevils a two-point lead, which ended up being all that was needed to separate the two sides. Española won, 34-32.
After the game, though, competitiveness was set aside.
“It was weird (seeing her coach another team), but she (Roybal) gave us both hugs at the end,” Martinez said. “She said ‘Good job.’”
Roybal made a point to visit with all her former players and thought those players that she coached, especially, put up good performances.
“I was happy to see some of the girls that I coached,” Roybal said.
Two of the players with the most varsity experience from last year, Chavez and Martinez, were the leading scorers for the Lady Sundevils against the Demonettes. Chavez had 14 of Española’s 34 and Martinez collected eight.
Chavez, in particular, was the player entrusted with the game-winning shots, and she made every basket her team needed from her.
“Kaylee is a great asset to the program and we need to continue to use her as a leader and as a role model,” Española head coach Johnny Abeyta said.
Her clutch play was necessary, after the Lady Sundevils got off to a slow start.
For the entire first half, Española was down on the scoreboard. The Demonettes were the side with the more clinical play, passing for layups and completing fast breaks.
The Lady Sundevils often resorted to shooting the ball from the three-point line, but they did not bring the shooting touch. Chavez was the only player to make a three-pointer in the first half, and she did so with a buzzer beater. It was the first time in her career that she scored while time ran out.
She went into the locker room at halftime down by three, with the Demonettes in control at 17-14.
It did not take much longer for the Lady Sundevils to grab their first lead of the game.
Junior Jaci Cole made a free-throw and a three-pointer at the beginning of the first half to make the score 18-17, in Española’s favor.
The rest of the half was back-and-forth, until a technical foul on Santa Fe High allowed Martinez to take the game-tying free-throws, to send the game into overtime.
Roybal was unsure what to make of the foul.
“The ball was right next to Taylor (Salazar), and she just gave it to Johnny (Abeyta), the coach,” Roybal said. “She just gave it to him. She didn’t throw it or do anything.”
In overtime, Santa Fe’s leading scorer, Adonica Baca-Martinez, fouled out, forcing her to leave the game. Roybal said the team missed her leadership at the end of the game.
Española controlled the clock, wasting time as they prepared to take the final shot.
The time-wasting technique worked and Chavez flew through a group of defenders to score an easy layup.
“Ultimately, that’s what won the game for us, us having the ball at the right time and making the shots when we needed to,” Abeyta said.