I was struck by the difference in attendance between the Española Valley girls Jan. 30 home game against Los Alamos and the Española Valley boys game at Los Alamos the previous day.
While the boys game was filled to the rafters with hundreds of traveling Sundevil fans, there were plenty of open seats for the girls game in Española.
I mentioned this to Española girls coach Ron Drake, who has done a great job in turning a team that had no wins the season before he arrived into a team that is ranked third in the state three years later and is a perennial state tournament qualifier. He said that’s just the way it is. When he had winning girls teams during his 10-year tenure at Santa Fe High School, the boys team still outdrew the girls even when the boys were losing.
I’ve come to expect that the boys fans will outnumber girls fans, but at least a few more fans to cheer on the girls would be great to see. They play hard, practice hard and feel the pain of losing and the joy of winning just as deeply as the boys do. Lately, the girls have been providing some of the biggest surprises, especially in District 2AA, which produced the biggest shocker last week.
The Dulce Lady Hawks entered their Feb. 2 District 2AA game Navajo Prep, the defending Class AA state champions, with a 3-16 record. Nevertheless Dulce won 43-40 at home (see related story). On a scale of 1-to-10, this upset is an 11 or higher.
What Dulce’s win does is give every team in this district hope that it can beat Navajo Prep for the district title. Especially hopeful are the Escalante Lady Lobos, which defeated Dulce in Tierra Amarilla 67-59 in overtime Jan. 29 in their district opener.
Coronado is just starting District 2AA play this week, and the Lady Leopards are probably excited about their chances after beating Dulce 56-54 in their district opener.
In District 3AA, the Mesa Vista Lady Trojans keep rolling along. They are 17-1 on the season and recently beat Questa to start 1-0 in district play.
Peñasco has been dominating this district in recent seasons, but this is the Trojans’ best team in years and they are likely hungry for their first trip to the state tournament since 1999. Peñasco has been playing well after a slow start and have won 11 of their last 12 games.
Two other District 3AA members, Questa and McCurdy, are a notch below Peñasco and Mesa Vista and will not threaten for the district title.
Both Peñasco and the Trojans like to press and the winner between these two will likely be decided by defense and which team can force the most turnovers. With 6-foot-1-inch Abigail Soto back on the floor for Peñasco after being ineligible earlier in the season, look for a battle in the post between her and Mesa Vista’s 5-foot-9-inch Carmelita Trujillo, the Trojans’ leading scorer.
The top two teams in District 2AA and 3AA will meet at state. The first-place team from each district will host an opening-round game against the runnerup from the other district. It used to be that a trip to Farmington to take on Navajo Prep was a quick ticket out of the state tournament, but that may not happen this year. Even if the Lady Eagles rebound and win the District 2AA title, the runnerup from District 3AA will have a lot more confidence this season — Peñasco and Mesa Vista have not played Navajo Prep but are a combined 12-0 against the other District 2AA teams.