The Española Valley High School Lady Sundevils took care of business in their Tuesday game on their home court.
The No. 2 seed had no problem with the No. 7 St. Pius X Sartans in the state quarterfinal, cruising to a 62-36 victory even despite some players not seeming to be at their best.
“We’ve been waiting for a day like this for a long time,” said senior post Kianna Duran.
The Sundevils reach the Final Four for the second time in three years, though the 2019 team that made it was a No. 13 seed, a far cry from these Sundevils.
“The program’s in a good place, I think the kids are doing a great job,” said Española coach Joe Estrada. “This team’s a whole lot deeper, and probably playing a lot more confident.”
Española was able to host a limited capacity crowed in accordance with updated state COVID-19 restrictions; the girls had to have their final regular season home game in an empty gymnasium.
“The crowd’s energy was contagious,” said senior guard Anita DeAguero.
“Their energy just makes us want to play better,” DeAguero said. “Every time we score, we hear the crowd, and it just makes us want to score more and play better.”
The Sartans scored first to take a 2-0 lead, but that is all they would muster. Though the Sundevils were stuck at 2-2 for the first three minutes of the game, that did not last much longer, and they quickly went up 11-2.
DeAguero went red hot; in the closing seconds of the first quarter she took a pass from Miranda Salazar right in front of the half court line and drained the buzzer-beater, giving her eight points in that quarter alone as the Sundevils took a 14-4 lead. And another 3-pointer very early in the second quarter made it a quick 11-piece.
“My teammates’ confidence in me meant a lot,” DeAguero said. “I knew they had my back and I knew that I had people that would rebound if I miss.”
“You see all of us on the bench when she’s shooting,” said Duran. “We all want her to score. We want all of our shooters to score.”
The Sundevils continued to roll, as Jordan Torres also scored nine first-half points, and took a 27-15 lead into the locker room with their defense dominating.
“St. Pius put some aggressive man defense on us, they were very physical with us tonight,” Estrada said. “And I think that’ll help us down the road, too.”
In the third quarter, Duran began to take over with a 6-2 run on her own as Española slammed the door with another 17-point quarter against a team that had averaged just 37 points allowed per game.
The Sundevil press was less relentless than usual, and Estrada said that was part of the plan after noticing how the Sartans liked to drive to the basket.
In the end, it was no match, and the Sundevils ran away to win by 26 points.
“Now, they’re convinced they can win,” said Estrada. “Now they know they’re good.”
All told, DeAguero led the team with 16 points in the game, while Torres and Cameron Conners both scored 14.
“I think we were more athletic than them, I think we were more skilled than them,” Estrada said. “We maybe wanted it a little more than they did, too.”
The dominant win came despite getting just nine points combined between the trio of Salazar, Destiny Valdez and Jasmaine Baca, normally three of the team’s leading scorers. Baca sat out for the first half for what Estrada called a disciplinary issue, while Valdez and Salazar, usually automatic from range, both went cold and failed to hit a field goal.
“It’s good knowing that if one person has a bad game, that the rest of the team can pick up that slack,” said DeAguero.
The Sundevils advance to take on Kirtland Central on Thursday (5/6). The Broncos made the state championship last year, and finished this season at 10-1 while allowing just 35 points per game.
“We’re pretty much just confident in the way we play,” said Duran. “If we just continue playing like that, I feel like we can go a long way.”