SANTA TERESA — Mikey Lopez and Isaiah Bustmante: Capital High School's Alpha and Omega.

The Jaguars' beginning and end.

Saturday night in the visitor's locker room at Santa Teresa, Lopez wore a precocious smile as he took in just his third varsity game this season as a freshman and his first taste of state tournament experience. The future for him is Wednesday, where the 12th-seeded Jaguars will play in a Class AAAA state boys basketball quarterfinal in The Pit after a 52-41 win over No. 5 Santa Teresa in the opening round of the tournament. Capital (14-12) plays No. 4 Albuquerque Volcano Vista (16-12) in an 11:30 a.m. matchup Wednesday.

And there will be three more years of varsity sports once basketball season ends.

The end? He knows none.

What he knows is the here and now.

"I feel that I have a pretty big role on the team, and I'd do anything for them," Lopez said. "I mean, they'd do anything for me."

Not 15 feet away from Lopez sat the senior Bustamante, who was a trainwreck of emotion. The tears of sweat, determination and exhilaration filled his face as the mortality of a prep basketball career stared him in the face. He won the staredown this time, but his end is simply a matter of when and how.

Still, never had the bleary-eyed Bustamante wanted to win a game more than against the Desert Warriors. His 16 points and tenacious defense on his assignment, Santa Teresa guard Paco Rodriguez (who scored a team-high 12 points), exemplified the silent desperation Bustamante played with.

"I'm a senior and that could have been my last game if we didn't do it," Bustamante said. "I wanted to win, so that's what happened."

Winning for the Jaguars in the 2009-10 season has never been an easy prospect, and Win No. 14 was no different. Capital's variety of box-and-one defenses at times confounded the Desert Warriors at times. At other times, Santa Teresa solved it by knocking down a series of jumpers.

Those moments did not come in the last 11 minutes. After knocking down shots at a 13-for-26 clip from the field, Santa Teresa (19-8) missed 10 of its next 12 tries. Capital took the opportunity to stitch together a 10-1 run that made the score 44-30 after Estevan Martinez knocked down a free throw with 5 minutes, 46 seconds left.

Capital senior wing Reece Goodman considered it some of the toughest defense the Jaguars played all season, and much of that was a product of Bustamante's effort. He also played some point guard, with another freshman, Christian Martinez, suspended for the game for violating team rules.

"I think Isaiah wanted it more than anybody on this team," Goodman said. "I don't know, he played with so much heart."

With the heart in plenty of supply, Lopez provided the muscle that the Jaguars missed for most of the year. He wasn't available until the District 2AAAA quarterfinal against Taos on Feb. 24 because he had to sit out for 90 days after transferring from Santa Fe High in October.

He was front-and-center after entering the game at the halfway mark of the first quarter, getting a three-point play off a putback that gave Capital an 11-5 lead. Lopez added a 3 in the second and then tried to end the first half on a back-to-the-basket shot from 5 feet that went in, but he was called for a traveling violation.

The freshman knocked in a short jumper off the glass at the 1:54 mark of the third to make it 38-28. He also had several plays in the second half, where he dove and battled for loose balls on the floor. It's a lesson Lopez has learned quickly from his varsity teammates.

"It's about who wants it more," said Lopez, who had a career-high 10 points. "It's about our drive."

It's been discovered at just the right time.

It also might be a quality that one generation (Bustamante) can hand to another (Lopez).

Contact James Barron at 986-3045 or jbarron@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at thereadbarron.com.