Community Champions: Onate point guard commits to San Diego State University

While finishing her junior year of high school, Onate’s Jayden Perez verbally committed to San Diego State University.

Perez, who plays point guard for the Knights, tore her ACL earlier this month.

She says she was recruited by SDSU since she was a sophomore and that SDSU was always her first choice.

“San Diego State did stay and back me (after my ACL injury) and just believed that I am going to fully recover through everything so I’m very luck about that,” Perez said.

SDSU visited her twice at home and Perez visited the campus twice as well.

“I just love the staff there,” Perez said. “I think they are really genuine and I really connected on a whole different level.”

Perez had undeniable success at the high school level in academics and basketball. She is a 4.0 student according to her father and Perez has been a NM All-State all three years of high school.

She also was selected as the District 3-6A Player of the year her freshman and sophomore seasons and this past season she was selected to the ALL-USA New Mexico Girls Basketball team.

Even with all these accolades Perez still has her senior season to play with the Onate High School.

“I’m really excited,” Perez said. “I can’t wait to get back with all my girls and coach Reyes and we made such great improvements last year that I think the sky is the limit for us this year.”

Perez’s father, Saul Perez, is an ex Onate High School Boys Basketball Coach and she said that played a role in her success.

“He would critique almost everything so I think that was an advantage for me,” Jayden Perez said.

However, her high school success and her father weren’t the only thing that helped Perez catch scouts’ eyes.

Perez played with the AAU basketball team Texas Elite this spring, but her primary club was Team Fusion. Team Fusion is a club team from El Paso coached by Lee Williams.

According to Perez’s father, Williams played a huge role in helping Perez get an offer to SDSU as he worked “extremely hard” to get her name out there.

Nine other schools that recruited Perez including the University of Arizona, St. Mary’s College of California, Vanderbilt and Nebraska.