DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:

Not for one minute did Mark Allred enter the game that year. Playing basketball for the Estancia High boys’ team was the last thing on his mind.

Yet, he showed up to a couple of the games last season and sat in the stands. Embarrassed is how he said he felt while watching the Eagles fall apart en route to a 2-24 season.

Allred wasn’t even attending the school, but he suffered.

“You feel like you’re supposed to be out there. Not only you say that, but everybody else around you feels like that,” he said. “They look at you like, ‘We could’ve used you. We needed you out there.’ You can’t really say anything. It’s like it’s my fault, like I messed up.”

In Allred’s mind, he did during his sophomore year at Estancia. As a point guard with no basketballs to pass after the season, he passed on school.

He gave up on it, skipping class, shoving aside assignments, all because he said he “wasn’t into the high school life.” When his mother, Josefine, found out, Allred said he was too far behind to play catch-up.

Allred found himself out of Estancia altogether. Forced to attend a nearby continuation school, Allred quickly learned the consequences of his actions.

He said goodbye to basketball, his social life, and a new job greeted him. Josefine, a tireless working single mother, told Mark, the middle child of three, to grow up. In other words, find a job.

Allred landed one at a retail clothing store in town. While his teammates studied, practiced, played, and socialized during the week, he worked 30-35 hours. The cashier, sales, answering phones, whatever his boss ordered him to do, he did. No way could he get away with missing a day either, the way he did at Estancia. His mother worked in the early mornings, so Allred said he stayed in knowing she wouldn’t catch on so fast.

She eventually did. That’s when it finally hit Allred.

“It took me until I was out of high school to realize how much of a mistake I made,” Allred said. “I noticed that I’m a grown-up now. I’m 18. This is just one more problem I have to put on my mom’s shoulders. I have my own responsibilities.

“Just try to take off as much pressure off her as possible, so she doesn’t have to worry about me.”

Josefine, 42, said she doesn’t as much now, just when Allred doesn’t give her a heads up as to when his next game is at Estancia.

Allred returned to the school a week and a half after the start of his senior year. He elevated his grades, as he likes to put it “decent” enough to be academically eligible to play basketball.

It took time for Allred to raise his game on the court, where he leads the team averaging around 14 points per game. But in the last two games, he’s dazzled the home crowd with a game-winning jumper at the buzzer and a 29-point performance, lifting the spirits of his teammates, the program, the school, and his mother.

Josefine won’t be there tonight as the Eagles (14-13) play in the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division III-A playoffs at No.-1 seeded Renaissance Academy (22-2) of La Cañada at 7:30.

The odds are stacked against Estancia, which won its first playoff game since the 2004-05 season, much because of Allred’s career-night, 29 points during Wednesday’s 73-64 victory against Santa Fe.

Win, or lose, it doesn’t matter to Josefine, or Mark Sr., who Allred said has positively impacted his life since his father moved back to the area. The opportunity for their son to compete does.

“I’m really proud of him because he looks happy,” Josefine said. “I’m happy he’s doing better in school. I told him that he needs the school’s basketball program.”

In return, Estancia needed Allred to win games.

First-year coach Agustin Heredia is about the same height as the 5-foot-10 Allred. Heredia said he saw a lot of himself in Allred, high praise coming from the 1990 Estancia graduate leading the Eagles to the Division 3-AA title in 1989-90.

Still, the two bumped heads early on when Allred joined the Eagles two games into the season. The transition back to Estancia from continuation school, where Allred said he’d go once a week, pick up his assignments and briefly talk to his teacher before going home or work, proved to be a challenge.

He arrived late to a practice during the Estancia Coast Classic in December.

Heredia made sure to discipline him, illustrating that no player was going to receive special treatment, even days after Allred had scored 17 points in his first start.

“I told you I was going to be harder on my point guards,” said Heredia, a former point guard, now joking. “We kind of had some conflicts, but we both came to an understanding that we needed to work together. I recognized his talents and he recognized where I was coming from. He’s been away from the game. He’s just been playing pick-up ball. Pick-up ball can only take you so far.

“My experience as a point guard, getting everybody involved, making your players better, taking a good shot, knowing when to shoot it, when to push it. That’s what I’ve tried to instill in Mark. Here at the end [of the season], I haven’t really talked to him.”

No reason to, as Allred is in the place he dreamed of before the season. With the help of teammates like junior forward Ryan Knapp, who gives Allred rides to and from practice, never hitting him up for gas, because he can’t right now. Not the way Allred is performing.

“I cover that for him,” Knapp said with a smile.

Allred is also grateful for teammates like junior guard Troy McClanahan, whom Allred said McClanahan’s parents treat him like he’s part of the family.

“I’ve never been in a situation like this. I’ve never been the top scorer, the top athlete, the go-to-guy,” Allred said. “It’s not pressure. It’s just having the opportunity [and] knowing that my team and my coaching staff have trust in me that I can get the job done.

“It’s going to be tough. A lot of us on our team are happy to be playing against a team like [the Wildcats], just to know that they’re looking at tape on us, Estancia. They see us and we’re short, small, we don’t [have] guys grabbing the rim. We just play hard. We try to outsmart teams.”

Now there’s something Allred never thought he’d do two years ago, in school or on the court again.

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at [email protected].