Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005 | 9:16 a.m.
In the four years since Coronado High School opened in Henderson, the school's athletic teams have made some small but significant strides, as evidenced by the banners on the wall of the school gym.
A tennis banner here, a volleyball banner there, and somewhere on the bottom is an open space where this year, the girls' basketball team will hang a Sunrise Region championship banner.
Cougars coach Joe Moyes beams when he looks at that spot and talks about the progress his girls have made as they head into today's 4A state semifinals against Centennial at the Orleans Arena.
"I always defer to the girls," Moyes said. "It's the girls who got us here. It's an honor to coach these girls."
It may sound mushy, but that's a pretty fair reflection of the camaraderie at Coronado. The Cougars know they face long odds against Centennial today, even with the Bulldogs playing with only seven healthy players, but talk to the Coronado players and they tend to look at this as more of a benchmark than anything.
"This is our first game we've gotten to play them during the season," Cougars forward Amanda Smith said. "It's pretty exciting. We'll get to see where we stand. We're a competitive team, I think we match up with them pretty well."
Coronado was tested last week, first by a game Basic team that led until the final minute of Thursday's Sunrise Region semifinal, then by a Desert Pines squad that took the Cougars to overtime in the championship.
"We're really confident now," leading scorer Stephanie Delgado said. "Those two games were huge for us. It's always a rivalry against Basic. It was intense and we stayed focused."
But the players are a little more skeptical about whether last week's wins will help them today against the team still ranked 25th in the country by USA Today, despite losing one of its best players to injury and losing the regional title on Friday.
"It's exciting, and it's scary at the same time," junior Melissa Flores said. "We've never done this before. All we can do is come out and play hard."
Delgado said she and her teammates are just happy to be involved in the state tournament.
"The fact that we're even going to state, it's happy for me because it's my last year," she said.
Moyes said he's just trying to get his team to play its best game today.
"If you lose and play your hardest, there's no shame in that at all," he said.
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