Barron: Demons might have a little to write home about

James Barron | The New Mexican

4/29/2008 - 4/30/08

Andy Hyde didn't give a ringing endorsement of Santa Fe High baseball field.

"Our field isn't exactly the best," the Demons left fielder said after the team beat Albuquerque La Cueva for the first time in District 2AAAAA play on Saturday. "We don't really like playing here."

But to play at home is exactly what the Demons want come the weekend of May 16-17, the first round of the Class AAAAA State Tournament. The possibility of playing a best-of-three series on the road — possibly against Las Cruces or Mayfield; perhaps in Albuquerque against a myriad of schools — isn't enticing, even for a program that hasn't seen the postseason in 31 years.

It's an unlikely proposition at the moment since the Demons sport a 17-6 overall record and are 6-3 in 2AAAAA. Head coach John Morrison expressed a more compelling reason for Santa Fe High to play at home.

"It would be a lot of fun for the school to have something, to see some success here," Morrison says. "This has been an otherwise lean year."

Lean years have been the norm for the school, though. The school can count its successes on one hand in recent years.

• The girls cross country team making the AAAAA championships in 2004.

• The boys and girls basketball team reaching the AAAAA state tournament in 2006 (although the Demonettes were the 16th — and final — seed).

• The wrestling program sporting three state champions in the past three years (Travis Saxon in 2007; Trey Saxon and Derek Peperas in 2005 and 2006).

• Pole vaulter Marcus Rivera finishing second in the 2007 state track and field championships.

Otherwise, Santa Fe High hasn't had a lot to cheer about, which would make a home series a cherished commodity. What Morrison hopes is that the students take the initiative and use the moment to change the prevailing attitude.

"On the past, students and kids would come up and say, 'How bad did you lose? Are you gonna lose again?' " Morrison says. "There is such a defeatist mentality at this school. We've taken our lumps for so long in all of our sports."

Morrison would like for his baseball program to be the impetus for change. He has struggled to build respectability out of something that was such an afterthought at the school.

The field needed three years of work before it was playable. The Demons suffered defections, academic ineligibilities and bad attitudes while Morrison tried to shape his players into the mold he wanted.

His problems mirror those of the school and other athletic programs, and it has taken five years of lumps before something tangible came of them.

Morrison hopes the student body notices what happens when you persevere against all the odds and obstacles that he and the school face every year.

As for the field, it might not be much, but it can boast the school's best athletic program this year.