History is unfolding for the Española Valley girls tennis team.
When the brackets were announced Sunday evening for the Class 14A-4A state tournament, the Lady Sundevils checked in with a best-ever No. 2 seed built on a sterling 18-1 record in team matches. Only six-time defending champ Albuquerque Academy is seeded higher.
And in the individual tournament that started Wednesday, Olivia Suazo earned the No. 4 seed in singles, while the doubles team of sisters Gabriela and Sofia Fulgenzi were seeded second. In singles, Kaydence Arrey also earned an unseeded slot.
Team play begins Thursday as Española faces the winner between Bosque and District 2-4A rival Santa Fe Prep.
And those glittering seeds? Well, the Lady Sundevils are trying not to pay them too much attention.
“It’s big,” Española co-head coach Juan Carlos Fulgenzi said of the seedings. “But we were expecting the two seed. We ran through the district team tournament. At this point, seeds mean nothing. We have to go play one round at a time. The state tournament is a whole new season.”
And the Lady Sundevils are ready with its deepest team that is stacked from top to bottom with veteran players all of whom have state tournament experience, with Isabella Archuleta and Amelia Davis-Martinez rounding out the singles line-up, with Arrey and Suazo forming another double team and Archuleta and Davis-Martinez the third.
“It’s always important, just having been there,” Juan Carlos Fulgenzi said. “It’s a big thing that you can always go back to your previous experience being there. But every state tournament is a new season and we have to be at our best.”
It’s something that has been drilled into his daughters, as well as the rest of the Sundevils.
“We want to go all the way, win and give our best effort,” senior Gabriela Fulgenzi said. “We just need to play smart and work together.”
The Fulgenzi sisters added some juice to an already loaded roster when they came over with their dad, from Robertson High School, when he was hired as Española athletic director last summer.
With a mid-season injury, Gabriela Fulgenzi missed the team’s only loss of the season, coming to the Chargers, but she’s healthy and the Lady Sundevils are looking to bring home their first-ever tennis trophy.
“They had a good core before we got here and we’ve just added to it,” she said. “It’s been good. It’s been different, a different environment. I like it. It was hard at first, but I like it now. Everyone has been very welcoming.”
The Lady Sundevils plan to be quite unwelcoming to their opponents when team play starts Friday, but they know they need a concerted effort from top to bottom.
“It’s going to take us playing smart and playing with a lot of heart, being solid and not trying to be too spectacular,” Juan Carlos Fulgenzi said. “We need to play it one point at a time, one game at a time, one match at a time and we can’t overlook anybody. We just have to be play within ourselves. Don’t try to play too big, just control what we can control and play the way we’ve practiced and trained and go from there.”
The Fulgenzi sisters have a strong bond off the court and that translates into success as a doubles unit, even though it’s been a relatively new pairing this season.
“It’s good,” Gabriela Fulgenzi said. “I used play with the No. 1 (Suazo) so it’s kind of new, but we try to lift each other up. I feel like we do. It’s hard sometimes, but we enjoy each other.”
Although this is her second state tournament after playing for Robertson last year as an eighth grader, Sofia Fulgenzi said she definitely felt nerves a year ago. But, she said, they should be less this time around since she starts the tournament off playing alongside her sister.
“I was nervous, but I knew that I would be OK,” she said. “And now I also play with my sister for individuals, so I know I can count on her.”
As for expectations, Sofia Fulgenzi said it’s a matter of falling back on training.
“For myself, I want to do the best that I can,” she said. “I think we’ll do good. We need to focus on the next point instead of the last one and take it one match at a time. In doubles we have to work smart, play smart and work together.”