In the team’s first game under his leadership, in April 2021, the girls scored 72 points, more than the Lady Trojans had in nearly a decade, according to the Sun. In the summer, they practiced daily and competed in tournaments around the region.
Leonard was an avid reader and ’80s music fan, gregarious and romantic. He and Renee met 21 years ago, when he, a cocky athlete, saw Renee exit a Mesa Vista bathroom and stuttered her name. Kylie and Jaslene kept playing while they were hospitalized, calling home during timeouts and halftimes for updates on their dad and grandpa’s health. “We knew that they would have wanted us to play,” Jaslene said.
Renee, who had been keeping it together in front of her girls — “four very important sets of eyes watching me,” as she put it — listened and wept quietly into her hands.The deaths hit hard well beyond Mesa Vista. Opposing teams staged several tributes to the Torrezes before games in late January, until Mesa Vista asked them to stop — players were becoming too emotional, said Richard Apodaca, the district principal and boys’ varsity coach.
“Kylie, she’s kind of feeling it a little more now,” Boies said at the beginning of March. “She’s playing through it, and she’s playing hard. But she tells me that it finally hit her, and she misses them a lot more now.” The Trojan Express rolled into the parking lot at Santa Rosa High School before dusk on March 4, down the street from shuttered storefronts on historic Route 66. In the hallway outside the gym, a poster reading “Covid Changed Everything” advertised a mental health hotline. In the gym, a sign said masks had become optional as of Feb. 17.
The girls were giddy in the locker room, beaming as Boies praised standout players and reminded them what they had just done: Mesa Vista girls had twice before made the state tournament. But they’d never made it past the first round. Boies bounded into the school with nervous energy, talking of the “Cinderella story” that would continue that night. In the gym, Clayton cheerleaders waved shiny pompoms while a Yellowjacket mascot sashayed to Katy Perry.The Clayton players, a few of whom approached 6 feet, mostly towered over Mesa Vista. But they were slower, and by halftime, Mesa Vista was ahead by four. Winning this, Boies reminded the Lady Trojans, would take them to the Final Four in Albuquerque.