Sotomayor basketball team chooses to play season opener after tragic deaths

What’s a high school basketball team supposed to do when a week before its season begins, the starting point guard and a former player are found shot to death?

Sotomayor High faced that dilemma last week.

At 12:15 a.m. on Nov. 7, police found Juan Melendez Jr., 17, the senior captain for Sotomayor, and former player Denzell Guzman, 18, shot on a cliffside lookout in Mount Washington. A car had driven up while the victims were standing outside a residence. Multiple shots were fired. The suspect vehicle fled. Both were pronounced dead at the scene after first responders attempted lifesaving measures.

Melendez and Guzman attended Alliance Tennenbaum Family Technology High on the Sotomayor campus. Sotomayor had faced Cathedral in a basketball scrimmage Nov. 6, and multiple players went to the lookout afterward.

Coach Armando Fernandez left it up to his players whether to play in their season opener last Friday against Animo De La Hoya. They held a team meeting. Fernandez said he told them they could postpone games for a week, two weeks, three weeks. The team decided that Melendez, a 5-foot-5 senior, would have wanted them to play. After a memorial service last Thursday, the team won its opener 77-21 and will dedicate its season to the two players who were members of the City Section Division IV championship team two seasons ago at Sotomayor.

As for Melendez, Fernandez said, “Every team his their glue kid, and he was that at 5-5. He was a little Chihuahua, fearless. He was such a loyal kid, always had your back.”

A funeral service is scheduled Saturday for Melendez. A funeral service for Guzman is pending.

Police continue to investigate the shooting.