Blog: NM tourney snapshot March 11

THE PIT (KRQE) - Tensions ran on high on Thursday as several teams punched their tickets to state title games, while others ended their seasons in defeat.

You should have seen:

The crowd for the Espanola Valley game and the remarkably jubilant post game news conference. It’s well known that Espanola Valley travels well, but their fans owned The Pit Thursday night.

My headphones usually cut the noise substantially, but they were no help against the roaring crowd of 13,000 strong.

That’s what everybody saw. Now for the post game news conference, Devils’ Coach Richard Martinez made it a packed house by inviting his entire team and entire staff.

There wasn’t much x-and-o talk because the team couldn’t do anything but smile and laugh .

They’ve been so close before and you could see the burden lifted from them.

You have to see:

KRQE.com’s interview with Mayfield’s Josh Trujillo . The school has only advanced to the title game three times in its history and the moment was clearly emotional for Trujillo.

While he couldn’t seem to find the words, he certainly found the hoop on Thursday, as he scored 18 points.

Player of the day: Michael Maya, Valley Vikings. Even though it was in a losing effort, Maya put up 36 points including several circus-like 3-balls to give his team a chance.

Valley lost in spite of Maya’s stellar day.

Team of the Day: Espanola Valley. It’s been a long hard road for this school with some state tourney slip ups, and Thursday’s game was no exception.

Academy made a really strong run in the second quarter to take a commanding lead into the half.

But the Devils refused to panic, they kept playing their game and turned a deficit into a points surplus in no time flat.

What to watch for on Friday:

The three newest state champions. Starting at 4:00 p.m. Friday KRQE.com will have live twitter updates on our Preps page or you can follow us at krqe_sports on twitter.com.

Friday’s championship games include Texico v. Navajo Pine, West Las Vegas vs. Santa Fe Indian and Kirtland Central vs. Shiprock.