The bus ride was quiet down to Española.
Mesa Vista’s boys and girls basketball teams, both playing in the tournament final, were fully focused on their upcoming games.
“Usually, a bus is loud, and the girls are loud and the boys are loud,” said Mesa Vista girls basketball coach Jesse Boies. “Coming here, it was focused. I didn’t even have to tell them. This team is programmed, they’re ready to win.”
And for the girls team, it showed, with perhaps their best game yet of an incredible season.
The Lady Trojans reached 11-0 on the season, winning the first Northern Rio Grande tournament in school history with a 68-53 win over Dulce (11-5) in the final, cementing themselves as the top team in 2A. They are the last undefeated team in the state across all divisions.
“We were hyped and happy,” said sophomore Tana Lopez. “It just felt great.”
The final four of Dulce, Mesa Vista, Peñasco and Escalante has a chance of being the final four teams at the state tournament.
The tournament environment was fantastic all weekend. The girls championship was the biggest of them all, with an estimated nearly 2,000 fans piled in to Española Valley High School.
Boies may have had the most fun of anyone, reconnecting with friends and making new ones everywhere he went. A Coronado graduate, he never got to play in NRG; the Leopards briefly joined the tournament not long after he graduated.
“This ain’t even a job, this is just something we love,” Boies said. “It’s in our blood.”
Mesa Vista took down Dulce for the third time this season, after winning the first two by a combined three points. While most coaches would hate to play the same team three times, Boies seemed to relish the opportunity, at least until the end of the game, and realizing they would have to play again three days later, this time on the road.
“It’s hard to beat a team three times in a season, much less four,” Boies said. “And there’s still a possibility (of playing each other) at the end, in the big tournament.”
The Trojans cruised to victory in their first game, winning 67-19 over McCurdy (0-9), going up 17-4 after the first quarter, and 50-7 at halftime. In the second half, they focused on trying to get all 12 players on the roster a field goal, and succeeded. (Amarissa Quintana, normally a leading scorer, had just one point on a free-throw in the first half, so she saw a bit of extra playing time after all the starters left the game early in the second half).
Freshman Kaylee Martinez had 10 points for McCurdy, and her scoring especially on 3-point shots was impressive throughout the weekend on a youthful and inexperienced team.
They battled to the very end in their semifinal matchup with Peñasco (7-6) while they were without starting center Brittni Suazo. But Kaelynn Trujillo filled in admirably with 10 points and nine rebounds.
The two teams were tied at the end of the first quarter, and close for much of the first half until Mesa Vista turned on the jets late in the second quarter to lead by eight at halftime. They scored the first 11 points of the third quarter, making it a 26-3 run in total, and led by 20 points in the third.
But just as the game was starting to look like another blowout, Peñasco made their own run, getting to within nine at the start of the fourth quarter. After a technical foul on Jesse Boies, soon Peñasco was within three, and not long after they took a lead.
Bella Boies, who finished with a game-high 21 points, hit a layup with a minute left to break a tie, then went to the free-throw line with 10.5 seconds remaining. She made one of two free throws, giving the Panthers a chance to tie. But they lost track of the clock, and a half-court chucked attempt was nowhere close, and Mesa Vista took the win.
Against Dulce, Mesa Vista was a bit more comfortable. Jasmine Keith hit a 3-pointer on the first possession and Dulce led for most of the first quarter until Mesa Vista took a lead later at 15-10. They ran up the score with a 12-4 run to start the second quarter, and were up 16 points by halftime. Dulce made a push in the third quarter, starting the half with a 17-6 run to be within five points. But Lopez took over late in the game, and Mesa Vista won by 15.
Mesa Vista won by staying patient on offense, and not giving in to Dulce’s size and speed.
“That was the most composed game we had,” Jesse Boies said. “They were patient, they let the game come to them.”
Lopez scored 25 points in the win, 13 in the third quarter alone. Sidneyanne Becenti scored 19 points, 12 of them in the fourth quarter.
“She doesn’t like to lose,” Boies said of Lopez. “She stepped into another gear. She gets out of her body, and a switch turns on.”
Dulce, for their part, has the makings of a top-two team. Of their five losses this year, three have come to Mesa Vista, and the others are to a 13-1 Arizona team and 12-2 Santa Fe Indian School, the No. 2 3A team. They’ve recorded exceptionally strong wins on the rest of their schedule.
Coach Alyssa Veneno missed the team’s first-round game with an illness, but Dulce did not miss her badly; they went up 11-3 after the first quarter, led by 10 at halftime, then put the game away with a 22-point third quarter. Bailey Vigil scored 17 points in the win.
In the semifinal, a stingy defense led to a 56-42 victory over Escalante after taking an early lead, up by 11 at halftime. Bailey Vigil scored 20 points.
Dulce and Mesa Vista played again after press deadline on Tuesday.
“We just have to be ready, because they’re coming for us,” Lopez said.
Mesa Vista faces perhaps its toughest test yet this weekend at the Santa Fe Indian Tournament. Their second-round game could be against Navajo Prep (8-3), who thus far has only lost to the very best 4A and 5A teams. If they win that, they likely will play the host Lady Braves (12-2), one of just two 3A teams ranked ahead of Navajo Prep on MaxPreps.