The Saugus girls’ basketball team has played 88 games since the start of the 2022-23 season.
Junior EvaMarie Rios has played in all of those games — but that’s not why she was celebrated Wednesday night after the Centurions’ regular-season finale against Castaic.
On Wednesday, Rios became the seventh Saugus girl to score 1,000 career points. She needed 14 points prior to the game to reach that mark and did so before the end of the first half, finishing with 18 points as the Centurions took down the visiting Coyotes at Saugus High, 67-21.
“I was a little worried that I wasn’t gonna hit it,” Rios said, “but with the reassurance for my teammates, and I just gave it all to the Lord, and I was just, like, ‘You know, whatever happens is gonna happen. And my family’s here. I know everything’s just gonna happen according to God’s will.’ I just kind of played my game, and then it came.”
Saugus head coach Anthony Falasca said he’s probably the only person to have seen every one of Rios’ points. The third-year coach took over the program at the beginning of her freshman season, and Falasca has come to rely on his point guard as a scorer, provider, rebounder or whatever else is needed on a given night.
“A player like that makes a coach’s job easier,” Falasca said. “When you know that you could get 20 out of a player and you could get five (assists), or if it’s a game where she’s got a tough defender on her, and maybe she’s not going to get her average, but knowing that she could go and get me seven assists, five, six, seven, eight rebounds, and contributing ways that a lot of other point guards are not able to contribute.”
Rios is part of a junior class of seven girls that has grown together. Some have played at the varsity level since they were freshmen, earning playoff spots all three seasons.
One of the constants throughout that time has been Rios.
“I give credit to my coach, because he kind of just let me go,” Rios said. “He just let me play to the best of my abilities, and he never really made me feel like I was never good enough. And I feel like, as a player, you need to have a coach that’s able to give you that the green light.”
Rios was joined by friends and family after Wednesday’s game to commemorate the achievement. Her older brother, JP, a senior on the boys’ team, was also being celebrated as part of the senior night celebrations at Saugus, which EvaMarie said was initially why she thought they were all there.
“Coach (Falasca), he did his thing, he totally surprised me,” EvaMarie said. “I had no clue. My whole family, I had no clue. My grandma came, like my whole family came, and he surprised me. It made my whole day, my whole day.”
The Centurions (17-11, 7-5) finished tied with Canyon for third place in the Foothill League. The only losses in league play for Saugus came at the hands of Valencia and Hart, the co-league champions, and Canyon, though that loss came in the first league game of the season, in overtime, and was avenged later in the year with a victory.
Saugus, ranked No. 113 in the CIF Southern Section’s latest ranking released on Monday, finds out on Saturday which division it will be in and who it will be playing in the first round of the playoffs.
“We’re gonna give everything we got, and we’re hoping that leads us as far as possible,” EvaMarie said. “And with coaches like coach Ant, I know we can make a pretty good run.”
After that, EvaMarie will be looking forward to her senior season. The goal Falasca has for her is to break the program’s all-time scoring record, currently held by Libbie McMahan, who scored 1,634 points before graduating in 2020.
McMahan went on to play softball at UC Davis.
“We’re gonna crank it up,” Falasca said. “We’re gonna make a deep run in the playoffs this year, a deep run next year, go catch it.”
