Coming one inch shy of a program-defining win might seem devastating. But as Española Valley head football coach Tylon Wilder looked out onto Sundevil Field on Friday night after his quarterback, Irvin Primero, came up one inch short of breaking the goal line for a 2-point conversion that handed Bernalillo a 21-20 District 1-4A overtime win, he hardly seemed disappointed. If anything, he saw a hard lesson he hopes the Sundevils learned that might benefit the suddenly relevant program.
"I think we learned more tonight than if we won," Wilder said. "This is playoff-caliber football, so we need to learn how to play playoff-caliber football." Wait, playoff-caliber football games? At Española Valley? Oh, yeah! This isn't your dad's or your grandfather's Sundevils program, one in which opponents walked in more than confident they would walk away with an easy win.
Until Wilder took over the program in 2022, Española had a grand total of one winning season and three nonlosing seasons since its doors opened in 1975. Since his arrival, the Sundevils have two straight winning seasons and are well on their way to a third. Remember when opponents saw the Sundevils as an almost automatic "W" on the schedule? Those days are done.
No, this program takes opponents' best punches and comes back swinging. Or better yet, it just start punching from the outset. Yeah, Española missed a golden chance to send a message to the rest of the state with a win over the Spartans, who came in ranked .
