By CLAIRE CRUZ, Staff Writer
The Santa Maria football and volleyball teams saw their seasons and playoff hopes abruptly come to an end this week due to COVID-19.
According to a statement from Santa Maria ISD superintendent Martin Cuellar, a high school student “was lab-confirmed” to have COVID-19 on Saturday, causing Santa Maria ISD to close all schools from Tuesday through Friday for disinfecting and place the football and volleyball teams in a 14-day quarantine.
The Cougars’ football team was scheduled to play La Villa on Friday in a District 16-2A Division I South Zone contest. A win would have put the Cougars in position to battle the district’s North Zone winner for the district championship and top playoff spot next week. Santa Maria’s volleyball team was going to play La Villa in a seeding game for the No. 3 playoff spot. Both games and the Lady Cougars’ to-be-determined first-round playoff match have been canceled.
Santa Maria had one cross country runner qualify for the regional meet, freshman Mia Picazo, and football coach and athletic director Israel Gracia said “as of right now, we’re still planning on her going to compete.”
“Our main concern, of course, is the health of the kids and everybody around, so we got to do what we got to do,” Gracia said. “It’s tough and it hurts, it hurts a lot. Especially seeing what they put into it. But I’ve been preparing them, telling them, ‘This could be taken away from us at a moment’s notice.’ It was very heartbreaking because we were getting in a groove and they were getting excited about everything.”
The Cougars played just one football game this season, defeating San Benito’s JV squad 31-20 on Oct. 22. Senior athlete Bernie Castellanos, the Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Magazine preseason offensive most valuable player for the district, caught three receiving touchdowns and made a field goal in the contest. Esiah Gracia and Chris Ibarra played quarterback, tossing two and one scores, respectively.
Israel Gracia said the defense was led by Rudy Flores, Gus Sandoval, Josh Gonzalez and Jordan Ramirez. Junior Eric Castellanos recovered a stripped ball on defense and ran it back 60 yards for a touchdown, and Esiah Gracia had an interception.
“We had a really good game against San Benito JV and we were ready for La Villa and having a shot at a district championship, but everything changes fast,” Israel Gracia said. “This year has just been a year of changes and a lot of adjusting. I feel for them big time, but they’ve been taught to be resilient and keep going forward, so that’s what we’re going to try to do now, just keep moving forward.”