Victorious Peñasco to get proper Pit experience this time

Mar. 14—RIO RANCHO — It's been four years since the Peñasco girls reached the pinnacle of high school basketball.

It's every team's dream to make the state finals in The Pit, to leave the locker room and convene at the mid-ramp area that bridges the court below and the stairs that lead to the practice facility above. Standing in that spot affords a view few people see but none forget.

Mandy Montoya has been there. She's looked down the concrete tunnel and heard the din of the arena echo up those walls and vibrate in that small space. The journey from the top of the ramp to the hardwood below takes only a few moments, but the memories last a lifetime.

For the Panthers and Montoya, they're still very much alive.

In so many ways, it feels like a lifetime ago — not because of the time, but the events that took place.

Peñasco reached the Class 2A state championship game on March 13, 2020, less than two days after the COVID-19 outbreak forced the New Mexico Activities Association to close the tournament to everyone except the players and coaches. The sound of thousands of fans waiting down below was replaced by an uneasy silence.

The Panthers had experienced it the day before, too. The semifinals of that same tournament were played in empty buildings. For their win over Lordsburg in Rio Rancho, there were no fans, no music during timeouts, not even a public address announcer for pregame introductions.

"It was eerie," Montoya said. "It was almost like a scrimmage but you knew what was going on around us. Just weird."

The Panthers lost in the finals that year. Thursday's double overtime 42-40 win over Tatum in this year's 2A semifinals gives the team a chance to experience an entirely different atmosphere this time around.

"I feel like everybody wants to experience that, a state championship game with fans," said Peñasco senior Analise MacAuley, an eighth-grader on that team four years ago.

Getting back to the finals was no easy task. The Panthers (20-11) had a challenging schedule in January where they lost four of five games, then lost three straight meetings to district rival Mesa Vista over a four-week span.

There were times in Thursday's game where the Panthers looked like they were done. Time and again, someone rose to the task and made the kind of play that makes people back home remember their names for a while — like Rochelle Lopez's game-tying bucket with 16 seconds left in regulation to send the game into overtime tied at 32, or her clutch 3-pointer with 8 seconds left in OT to force another extra session, or her two game-winning free throws with 17 seconds on the clock to snap a 40-all deadlock in double OT.

Lopez and MacAuley each had 15 points. Lopez had six of hers in the overtime periods while MacAuley pulled won a game-high 13 rebounds to go with seven blocked shots.

When the Panthers forced Tatum's 18th (and final) turnover of the game with just a few seconds left, the celebration was on.

It meant getting another chance to live The Pit experience, albeit with a dramatically different feel.

One thing that will remain the same as always is the one thing no one outside the team's locker room will ever see. Montoya said her one and only superstition is wearing Space Jam socks every time she coaches a game.

"It's a different sock every time, but since I've been coaching my entire career it's been Space Jam socks," she said, lifting her pants leg just enough to reveal the pair she wore Thursday.

As for the rest, MacAuley and fellow senior Charnelle Gonzales were on the varsity roster in 2020. Neither played in the championship game but both were there.

Rather than turning to wave at their friends and family, they sat on the bench as Peñasco's dream became a surreal memory that will never fade. The sounds of silence, it seems, are just too loud to be forgotten.

"I can't wait to be back," MacAuley said as she headed back to her team's locker room to celebrate with her friends. "It's been a long time."

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