Tucked away in the northern Jemez Mountains resides one of the best basketball players in the region.
Ashlynn Jaramillo does everything for her Coronado team, from scoring to passing to defense.
Jaramillo led Coronado (3-5, 1-0 in district) to a victory to open district play. Behind her career-high 38 points, the Leopards defeated New Mexico School for the Deaf (4-1, 0-1) 61-7 at home on Wednesday.
“We all worked together, and we ran our plays like we’re supposed to,” Jaramillo said. “When we work together, we actually do good.”
Jaramillo shot an incredible 17-of-21 from the field in the victory. But even after that game, she said she wished she had done a better job limiting her turnovers.
While scoring nearly two-thirds of the team’s points, Ashlynn Jaramillo said it’s a role she enjoys at her small school in her small town.
“If I step up, everyone else gets motivated,” she said. “It makes everyone else want to step up.”
Paris Chavez added 12 points, and Chastelyn Jaramillo had 12 rebounds, five assists and five steals.
Coronado controlled the game from the start against the Braves, scoring six points in just over a minute, and they had the first 22 points before the Roadrunners got on the board. Throughout the game, Coronado picked off passes and turned turnovers into points. Jaramillo hit a 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer to go up 38-5, and they played almost the entire second half with a running clock.
“We’re starting to play together more as a team,” said Coronado coach Krista Lent. “It gives them some confidence, gives them a little bit more understanding that they’ll know what to do during our district play.”
Before the varsity games, Coronado hosted a pair of middle school games, with Dulce beating Coronado 24-11 in the girls game and 46-29 for the boys.
The Leopards next play against Hozho (5-5) in a non-district game on Saturday. Coronado has their eyes set on a district championship and a state tournament appearance, though competition will be tough from Jemez Valley.
“We’re expecting them to play very hard,” Lent said. “We expect this team to be able to make it to state. Whether we’re one or two in this district. That’s our hope, that’s our goal.”
Coronado Boys Fall off Late
Practicing is always a challenge for Coronado with the sprawling nature of the school district.
Especially so when immediately after winter break comes a snow day then a gas leak.
The lack of practice showed in a loss by the Leopards (2-7, 0-1) to NMSD (6-0, 1-0) 46-35 on Thursday.
But after the game, players were ready to go practice as soon as possible.
“It’s definitely something new,” Coach Andre Cordova said. “My expectations for practice are we should be practicing as intense as we intend on playing.”
The Roadrunners, coached by Abiquiú’s Francis Lopez, remain undefeated on the season.
“I think we got a little bit too high hopes,” said Micheal Suskey, the Leopards’ leading scorer with eight points. “We got a little ahead of ourselves, thinking it was going to be easier than what it was.”
The game was competitive all the way through, with Coronado ahead for most of the first three quarters, but never by more than about five points. But it came apart in the fourth quarter, when the Roadrunners went on a run to go up by nine points. Santos Martinez hit the team’s lone 3-pointer, but it was the Roadrunners who answered, and finished with an 11-point win.
“I expect our practices to be 10 times more intense than what they’ve been,” Cordova said.