CHS star hopes to blaze Division I trail

Recently graduated Clovis High School girls' basketball star Zarai Lewis is sandwiched between two points in time: 

A few months removed from being the Wildcats' top scorer and shot blocker for the third straight year. A few months until she begins her next chapter at New Mexico Junior College.  

If Lewis can succeed at NMJC and collect a Division I offer, she can show young Clovis hoopers that it is possible to go from this rural town to the pinnacle of college athletics.  

"I know there's a lot of people who have the mentality that they're stuck here so they don't really care," Lewis said, gazing out at clusters of kids at the CHS girls' basketball annual youth summer camp. "If I could just show them I did it, then they can do it, too."  

The "mentality" Lewis described is understandable. No member of CHS girls' basketball has started and finished at the Division I level since Danni Williams in 2015.

Though players may have had the talent to crack a Division I squad, Clovis' middle-of-nowhere reputation reduces exposure, therefore limiting opportunities. Unless someone is putting up video-game numbers, Division I recruiters are likely to miss Clovis.

"Sometimes it's hard because there's not as many schools around here to get looked at," said CHS head coach Jeff Reed, who once picked up Kim Mulkey – four-time NCAA Championship head coach – from the Clovis Airport in 2015. Mulkey, then at Baylor, was gunning for Williams – New Mexico's first three-time winner of the Gatorade Player of the Year Award. 

It is important to note that CHS has sent several players to the next level recently. Lewis could have been one. She holds offers from multiple NAIA and Division II schools, including New Mexico Highlands. She would have received financial compensation from those schools, too.  

It is not that those are bad options. But it is not what she wants. Beyond wanting to play at the Division I level, Lewis, who has lived in Clovis her entire life, wants to experience new ways of life. Her dream school is the University of Texas at Austin.  

An argument could be made that Lewis' best chance to go Division I is by succeeding at a Division II then hitting the transfer portal. But that may be riskier than going to a JUCO and betting on herself.  

"There's some consequences to that portal transfer," Lewis' father Carlton told The News. "If you enter the portal and nobody picks you up, then you've lost your school that you were at, and there's nowhere else to go." 

On the flipside, if a player at a Division II succeeds and enters the transfer portal it is more difficult for them to find Division I. Thousands of players enter the portal every year. Programs aren't actively trying to ship off one of their best players. Why would they?

This mindset, of course, is the opposite of a JUCO program. There, coaches' jobs are to – quite literally – help you transfer. Few in The Land of Enchantment do it as well as Lewis' next stop: New Mexico Junior College.  

Since 2022, Hobbs' NMJC has sent players to Arizona State (Sandra Magolico), Clemson (Danna Grenald), UTEP (Delma Zita and Mariama Sow) and Kent State (Bianca Juzzo).  

"It's a dogfight every night. So you get a really good experience to get those kids away from just a small town onto a bigger stage," said NMJC assistant coach Rachel Janzen, who recruited Lewis. "I always tell every kid the sky's the limit for you. Because where you go from here depends on the work you put in." 

Lewis is cognizant of her potential and the work required to maximize it. This summer she is training with her father Carlton once, sometimes twice a day. He is putting her through the same grueling workouts he did when he played at Eastern New Mexico University.  

"High school ready isn't the same as college ready," Carlton said.  

Inside the Lewis' home gym, Zarai is doing shoulder presses, curls, shrugs and lat pulldowns to build upper body strength required to finish at the rim; lunges, squats, core work and agility drills to continue her ability to get there in the first place. She made the fourth-most free throws (111) in New Mexico this year, according to MaxPreps.  

"Then I have these bungee cords that attach to your heels and your waist so that it helps her jump," said Carlton Lewis, who also has Zarai getting shots up on their driveway court.  

Years ago, that court hosted brutal one-on-one games between Zarai and her older brother Darrell.  

"It'd be like 11-3, 11-2. I may have beat her 11-0, 7-0 a couple of times," Darrell Lewis said. 

Though humbling and often frustrating, those games also helped build the ruggedness required to compete against physically demanding opponents. Something that later proved pivotal in her path to NMJC.   

This past April, Janzen made the trek from Hobbs to Amarillo to watch Lewis in the New Mexico Texas All Star game. Janzen remembers being curious to see how Lewis would handle a pair of towering six-footers committed to West Texas.  

"When you're put with all of the star athletes, sometimes you disappear," Janzen said.  

Lewis proceeded to score 23 points and lead New Mexico to the win. "She did not back down. She even had some blocked shots. And I was just like, 'OK, she stepped up to the challenge,'" Janzen said. 

Flash forward to last week and Lewis is leaning against the purple bleachers inside of CHS' basketball gym. Her brown eyes taking in the ocean of young girls hoisting up shots on lowered hoops. Starting to understand she is playing for something bigger than herself.   

"I know they're capable of getting out," she said.