'They gave it everything they had'

Clovis High School southpaw Jasiah Mendoza doesn’t regret having bleached hair in the graduation photos he recently took. 

“Ten years from now I could look back and be like, ‘Why did I bleach my hair?’ Then be like, ‘Oh, yeah, because we made it to the playoffs,’” said Mendoza.

Before the season, CHS baseball players agreed that “If we make the playoffs we’re gonna bleach our hair.”

Mendoza was a pillar of a Wildcats squad that snapped a half-decade long playoff drought. He’s also one of 11 graduating seniors who laid a foundation for the next chapter of CHS baseball. 

“There’s a big expectation going into next year,” senior-to-be Koby Rivera told The News last week. 

CHS head coach Richard Cruce leaned back into his office chair and reflected on why this was the first team to make the playoffs since 2018. The drought came after the Wildcats made the playoffs each year from 2015-18. One reason was the “cyclical” nature of high school sports.

Not so “cyclical” was the bond forged through some grueling COVID-19 rebuilding years. CHS finished 4-16 in 2021 and 6-17 in 2022.

During the pandemic, Cruce said, “We could bring our kids out twice a week for an hour in groups of eight. Just work individual drills. They couldn’t do drills where they threw each other the balls, that all had to be individual type stuff.”

It was a young team with several underclassmen expected to fill big roles, difficulties COVID-19 only exacerbated.

“I don’t think we ever built a team camaraderie,” Cruce said.

Then, in 2023, with COVID-19 in the rearview, the team went 12-14. Although CHS narrowly missed the playoffs, it won more games than it had in the past two seasons combined. And all this after a lowly 1-7 start.  

“We really changed our whole mindset where it was like, ‘This is one of our last years … we have to cherish every moment,’” said Mendoza, who is set to play at Eastern New Mexico University this fall. 

The tight knit bond could be shown through McPherson College-bound Nathan McIntosh. He opted to not have shoulder surgery this past offseason so he could finish out his CHS career with his “brothers,” according to Cruce. 

In 2024, CHS started strong, going 3-1 and showcased a powerful offense that amassed double digits in each win. The Wildcats showed promise through a large chunk of the year, getting strong contributions from Mendoza, McIntosh and Jayden Jameson.

Ultimately, CHS slowed down at the wrong time. It lost five of its final seven regular games, finishing 3-6 in district play. 

“I thought our season was over,” Mendoza remembered thinking. 

But at 13-12, CHS snuck in as the state tournament’s 15th-seed. 

So, hair was bleached and the Wildcats made the nearly four-hour trek to face No. 2 seeded Rio Rancho. 

CHS fell, 12-2, in game one of the three-game series. The following morning, before a potential elimination game, Cruce’s message was a simple one: “Play baseball, relax and have fun. There’s no pressure.”

Jameson proceeded to dazzle on the mound and dizzy Rio Rancho. The offense, however, left a combined five runners on in the fifth and sixth innings and CHS fell, 2-0.

Tears were shed. A feeling of being so close lingered. 

“We didn’t get a big hit when we needed to. But you know, those kids, they gave it everything they had. And that’s all we could ask for,” Cruce said. 

It’s been a few weeks since then. Last week, Cruce found himself slipping out of the clubhouse onto Bell Park field, well within earshot of the thwack pulsating from Rivera’s bat as he hit grounders to fellow CHS players: The offseason work to improve upon what the 11 graduating seniors just built. 

“We’re gonna do everything we can,” CHS senior-to-be Jax Piepkorn said after catching a bullpen.