There’s no sneaking up on everyone this time.

Likewise, the days of people leaning in to ask what ATC stands for or where those guys are from are over.

A year after winning a district title and reaching the championship game of the Class 2A state tournament, Santa Fe’s Academy for Technology and the Classics is no longer the best kept secret in small-school boys prep basketball.

“People definitely know who we are now,” said coach Bobby Romero. “I think no one is looking past us anymore.”

The Phoenix won 26 games last season and return virtually the entire roster. That includes seniors Rocky Miller and Juju Bernardino, two of the best players in the small-school ranks.

It’s an older, veteran group that did everything it had to during the offseason to ensure last year wasn’t a fluke. As soon as the Phoenix lost in the title game to Pecos, Romero laid out a road map to keep the wins rolling in.

He raised money to send the core of the team out of state to play the best teams it could find. They found gyms around town and across the state to challenge bigger schools. “We went to California and, yeah, we saw some pretty good teams out there,” Bernardino said. “But that’s what you have to do. You really see what it’s like out there, all that competition, you know?”

As much growth as the team has experienced in the months following last year’s title game in The Pit, not a lot has changed on the homefront. The Phoenix are still enjoying the fruits of the school’s newish gym, and they share

that space with every other team (and organization) on campus, including the sub-varsity basketball programs for boys and girls.

Simply finding the space to keep the team motoring ahead is part of the challenge Romero faces daily.

“I mean, we’ve been doing it for years, so it’s not really all that much different,” he said. “But it is hard to find practice time. Sometimes it’s during times you don’t really want and sometimes it’s in places we have to drive to, but we won’t let that stop us.”

Working through the adverse conditions are part of the grind at ATC, but things are looking up. The school will elevate to Class 3A next season and be in the same district as St. Michael’s, Santa Fe Indian, Santa Fe Prep, Robertson and West Las Vegas.

Just being in that district right now would be fun, Miller said. Getting the chance to test the team’s mettle against the bigger schools is something the Phoenix are getting used to.

“We’re all from the same city and we play a lot of those guys anyway, so I think we know how we’d do,” Miller said.

The Phoenix have already knocked off 4A schools Del Norte and Valencia, doing so by an average margin of 16 points during last week’s Bobby Rodriguez Capital City Tournament. They reached the finals, losing to Santa Fe High — but not before they’d made yet another statement in the team’s remarkable evolution from overlooked mystery meat to a bona fide championship contender.

ATC was the near-unanimous No. 1 team in 2A’s NMOT Coaches Poll for Week 1, having long since earned the respect of the state’s basketball community.

In a city that loves its high school hoops and has a strong tradition of hardwood excellence, finding a place for his team is something that puts an ear-to-ear smile on Romero’s face. “We’ve worked hard for this,” he said. “Yes we’ve had players come and go. Some guys have left, and we’ve had one or two get hurt, but we’ve had younger kids come into this team and fill those spots. It’s not just one or two guys. We’re more than that.”

So what’s the story now? Bernardino said it’s all about proving last year wasn’t a fluke.

“We never really took time off in the summer,” he said. “Maybe some teams do that, but we were out there all the time.”

Arguably the top player in 2A and certainly one of the top players in Santa Fe, the 6-foot-3 senior has the flow, touch and natural feel for the game that allow him to play at a higher level than most anyone else at this level. He makes shots and reads the floor in ways few others do.

As entertaining as it’s been, Miller laughs about some of the same issues that follow the team. In the official scorebook for the Capital City, his first name was misspelled for all three games.

“I guess people don’t know how to spell Rocky,” he said.

While it might still require a learning curve for some to get used to seeing ATC wreaking havoc, things are changing — slowly but surely.

“Now if we could just get more fans to come out and watch us, that would be nice,” Bernardino said.