It all came down to making shots for Española Valley. In the quarterfinals of the boys high school state basketball tournament, the Sundevils did it with aplomb. In the semifinals, well, not so much.
Still, the team walks away from the season with a strong feeling of accomplishment.
“I think we showed a lot of people what we’re capable of doing because 24-7 is a really good season,” said guard Josiah Fresquez. “We were ranked third. We won our district. We made it to The Pit and the final four. We did what we needed to do, we just couldn’t get over that last hump.”
No. 2 Artesia 72,
No. 3 Española Valley 51
In a game that was actually closer — for awhile — than the final score showed, the Bulldogs (20-9) had just a little too much of everything that mattered for the Sundevils (24-7) to overcome March 13 in The Pit.
“One of the things that hurt us throughout the game was our inability to get stops,” Española coach Joey Trujillo said. “We tried to pressure them and their guards did really good.”
Artesia also started a front line with a 6’8” post and a 6’4” power forward, leaving the Sundevils at a distinct size disadvantage.
“So just our inability to get stops and when they did miss, we had a hard time rebounding,” Trujillo said. “It wasn’t for a lack of trying. We boxed out, we did what we had to but when you’re playing a team that size, sometimes when the ball doesn’t bounce just your way, it’s a little bit hard.”
Fresquez, who scored 37 in the quarterfinals, finished with 19 points, but he only hit 6-of-19 shots and no other player finished with more than six points.
“On the offensive side, we just didn’t shoot the ball like we did (Wednesday),” Trujillo said. “We had a lot of open looks, the ball just didn’t go in.”
The Bulldogs clogged the driving lanes trying to limit Española from getting to the basket and forcing the Sundevils to shoot from the outside. And those outside shots simply were not dropping.
“We attacked the basket but at times we didn’t follow the game plan,” Trujillo said. “We wanted to attack and then kick out. And we tried shooting over the big guy. When we shot over him, we sort of bailed them out because that was a difficult shot. And we didn’t make any contact so we were unable to get to the line.”
It made for a difficult game.
“It’s hard to score over them, especially, I’m getting past my first guy and he’s six-eight and waiting for me at the rim no matter if I went up, under, nothing I did worked,” Fresquez said. “They were just too big to score on.”
It was tough for the undersized Sundevils, he said.
“It wasn’t frustrating. It was just our lack of ability because of how little we are,” he said. “We knew coming in that they we very big. Matt (Lovato) is our biggest at 6’2”. Their smallest guy is 6’2.” That’s a huge height difference. We knew coming into this game that we were either going to have shoot and make it or they would win the game.”
And the latter is what happened, although at the half, Española trailed just 25-21 and it remained 36-31 midway through the third quarter as the Bulldogs closed the quarter with a 13-4 run and deficit was not within single digits the rest of the way.
“Sometimes you shoot the ball and sometimes you don’t,” Trujillo said. “We know that and we accept that. Maybe we were a little bit fatigued from (Wednesday) because they were a bigger team. What a lot of people don’t understand is because of our lack of size we have to exert a lot of effort every game. So we exerted a lot of effort (against Silver) and maybe we were a little fatigued (Thursday) but at the end of the day, we didn’t make shots and they did.”
No. 3 Española Valley 69, No. 6 Silver 60
Fresquez played the game of his life March 12 in The Pit for the Sundevils (24-6), scoring 37 points, while Jerek Duda added 19.
“He was special tonight,” Española coach Joey Trujillo said of Fresquez. “We talked about that and we knew tonight was going to be his night. We looked at film and we knew these two guys were going to have their opportunities and it worked out. We followed the game plan. Our defense was pretty darn good. We took care of the ball. We did what we needed to do.”
It certainly was a special performance.
“This has just been my dream to be able to come to The Pit and be able to perform,” he said. “When I transferred to Española, I knew me, Jerek and Matt (who had 10 points) were going to be a special trio to play against. All we needed was a shot and we got our shot and we performed as best we could.”
Fresquez hit five 3-pointers and overall made 14-of-25 shots to fuel his hot night.
Lovato hit two 3-pointers en route to 10 points and added three assists.
And while the shooting was integral to the win, trying to pound the glass also made a big difference in holding Silver (21-7) down.
“We knew they were bigger than us in the post,” Trujillo said. “We knew they were going to get some offensive rebounds but what we wanted to do was limit them as much as we could. And we didn’t want them to use those offensive putbacks or turnovers to get on runs. So we were able to limit their runs with one of these guys scoring. We didn’t let them get on any eight-, 10-, 12-point runs. We let them have some five-, six-point mini runs. When you’re up 18 you can do that.”
It helped that Duda also was shooting well, hitting 7-of-11 shots inside the arc.
“I knew they were just going to start helping on Josiah,” he said. “So once I got the ball, I was either going to shoot from the point or pump fake and go by and get to the cup.”
The dynamics of Duda being a team leader for years and bringing in Fresquez from another school could have been tricky, but the team’s success can be attributed to them deciding to be strong teammates.
“Everybody told me when (Fresquez) was transferring that I wouldn’t get these two guys to play together because they’re ball dominant, and they were going to want to be the main man,” Trujillo said. “So we sat down and talked. I told them, ‘if you guys can work together instead of against each other, we’re going to be a special team.’”
And it worked beautifully.
“They bought in,” the coach said. “We had some bumps in the road, I’m not going to lie, but they bought in and I think tonight was a little bit of that. If it wasn’t Josiah taking it to the hole it was Derek, and then Matthew would hit some shots or get a rebound immediately. But these two guys decided that, as they say, they didn’t want to be the big fish in a little pond, so they were going to do whatever it took to get us to The Pit.”