Phoenix overcomes rocky start, loss of players to stay in contention in District 2-2A | Sports

CHanelle Jaeger never thought about the worst-case scenario — until it hit her and the rest of the Academy for the Technology and the Classics girls basketball team.

The Phoenix were a young, up-and-coming program last season that just enjoyed its greatest season on the hardcourt — a 12-0 regular season that ended with a tough 52-37 loss in the Class 2A quarterfinals to eventual state runner-up tularosa. With every key player returning for the 2021-22 season, it stood to reason ATC was ready to make the jump to contender status in Class 2A.

Nothing out of the ordinary appeared when the Phoenix rolled to a 2-0 start with convincing wins over Mora and McCurdy.

“You never go into a season thinking about things that can go wrong,” said Jaeger, the Phoenix’s junior point guard. “You think about how strong you are, how much of a tight unit we are. Then things start happening.”

It began with an injury to a freshman guard, followed by a student transferring from the school, then came illness in the form of COVID-19 infections, capped by a devastating season-ending injury to perhaps its best overall player, Perla Miramontes.

A 2-0 start gave way to a 1-3 hiccup and a 6-4 record. But as quickly as everything went sideways for the Phoenix, they learned to adapt and overcome challenging circumstances. ATC has won six of its last seven games, including a dominating 50-11 win over Tierra Encantada on Tuesday night in District 2-2A action at Christian Life Academy.

While that is the good news, the Phoenix’s one loss came in district play to leader Albuquerque Menaul on Jan. 20. The Phoenix let a five-point lead in the fourth fourth quarter slip away in a 35-33 loss to the Lady Panthers, and put more pressure on ATC to find a way to rally and win the district title.

“That was heartbreaker,” Phoenix head coach Ron Drake said. “We lost by two, and had them by five. We didn’t get out on a 3-point shooter, we had a crucial turnover. We played good defense, except for that one play.”

While Drake lamented on the bad defensive breakdown, he couldn’t help but praise how his team responded to the adversity it faced. It started during a 56-29 loss to St. Michael’s on Nov. 30, when freshman Monica Marquez injured her ankle in the first half as the Phoenix stayed within earshot of the Lady Horsemen. ATC scored just 19 points over the final three quarters after being within 11-10 after the first.

Her absence was felt during the first round of West Las Vegas’s Brian Gallegos Memorial Tournament, when Escalante hammered the Phoenix 77-44. While the Lady Lobos have established themselves as a 2A contender, the loss was the first sign something wasn’t quite right with ATC.

Jaeger said the team might have suffered from overconfidence and didn’t realize how much work was still needed to reach contender status.

“It kinda felt like we were in this sleep state, and we couldn’t find our way out of it,” Jaeger said. “There were these waves of emotions, whereas now we’re forced to play, we have to play with fire.”

When Marquez came back, the program lost forward Bella Davis, who decided to transfer to Santa Fe High. Davis was the team’s top rebounder and, Drake said, perhaps the team’s best defender, with length to disrupt passing lanes and the size to matchup against other team’s post players.

As if that wasn’t enough, Miramontes was lost for the season with a torn ACL during a 56-31 loss to Class 1A contender Roy/Mosquero. She was the team’s second-leading scorer at the time, but she brought a basketball IQ that the rest of the young, inexperienced Phoenix looked up to at key moments.

Sophomore wing Charli Koseoglu, the team’s leading scorer, said she felt pressure to take on Miramontes’ role as a team leader, and it affected her.

“I was very stressed out,” Koseoglu said. “I’ve been pretty nervous in games lately. I feel flustered. This is the first game [against the Alacranes] where I felt like I came back to normal. Today, we had a really good team chemistry with the passing, and that really helps me because sometimes I feel like I have to be the one to score.”

COVID-19 also had an impact on the team, as it did with almost every program in the state. The school closed for 10 days for remote learning in mid-January, which meant the gym was also off limits. Even when the team came back, there were some players who contracted the coronavirus and one opted to leave the program to stay in remote learning.

While all of these subtractions seemed destined to ruin the team, the Phoenix have found new pieces that are fitting in the holes left by attrition. Marquez and Jaeger have taken on more of a scoring role, while Jada Gallegos has shown she can shoot the ball from the perimeter too.

Drake said he was especially impressed by the improvement in Jaeger and Gallegos, who he calls “Sparky” for her scoring role off the bench. Drake said Gallegos puts in extra time before practice, focusing on her shooting and dribbling, while Jaeger always had the ability to score. She just preferred to be a good teammate and pass the ball.

“In my first year here [2019-20], I showed her the stats and she scored 159 points as a freshman,” Drake said. “I said, ‘You gotta shoot. You gotta be a threat for the defense.’ ”

Jaeger showed that in a 42-32 win over Estancia on Jan. 18, when she scored 10 points. Gallegos, meanwhile, has hit double figures in three of her last four games.

She scored 12 points against Tierra Encantada, including a 3-pointer in the second quarter that gave the Phoenix a 29-6 lead.

Drake said the Phoenix need a little bit more of a scoring punch, but the defense is playing at a high enough level to carry them through the district at the very least. Whereas he had dreams of hosting a home game for the state tournament that starts in March, Drake now hopes to win the district and get into the tournament.

“We’re right there,” Drake said. “We just gotta keep working on our defense and improve our scoring. We lost 20 points a game [through attrition].”

All the Phoenix are trying to do is make the best out of a bad situation.