During basketball season at Saint Joseph Academy, Angel Ochoa forced himself awake at 3:40 a.m.
Minutes later, he’d be out the front door of his parents’ home in the Otay neighborhood of his native Tijuana, a brisk walk to the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. On the other side of the border, a Saint Joseph teammate waited for him in a convenience store parking lot.
From there came the roughly 50-mile drive north to San Marcos to make practice at 6 a.m.
Nearly 17 hours later, Ochoa would walk back through his parents’ front door. The next morning, it would start again.
“It was tiring,” Ochoa reflected, now a standout freshman at Palomar College, recently closing out his first season of collegiate basketball. “I knew I wanted something after high school. I wanted to play college ball. I wanted to get better. That’s probably why I didn’t quit.”
His voice trailed off, still carrying memories of fatigue. He repeated softly, “It was tiring.”
For Ochoa, a 5-foot-10 guard, the exhaustion of the daily commute didn’t show on the court.
A sophomore transfer after spending his freshman year in Tijuana, he was noticed by the Saint Joseph coaching staff at an open tryout in Mexico. Ochoa averaged 33 points per game as a sophomore and 35 as a junior.
For his senior year, he transferred to Victory Christian Academy in Chula Vista to play in a higher CIF basketball division, where he averaged 17 points per game.
“I remember my first game — I was super tired. The game is way faster over here than in Mexico,” Ochoa said. “I was nervous about transferring from Tijuana. My parents and I thought about it for a couple of months because I wasn’t sure. It’s a completely different environment. The school is different. English is my second language. I just knew one or two friends, but that was it. I didn’t really know anybody.”
Playing for head coach Ivan Patterson at Palomar College this season, Ochoa made an immediate impact as the team’s leading scorer (16.3 ppg), slightly ahead of Oceanside native and El Camino alum Isaiah Pomare, while shooting 55.7% from the floor and 45.5% from three.
Since joining the Comets, Ochoa has stayed with a friend in Escondido during the week, only crossing the border to be with family on weekends.
The Comets (19-11, 10-6 in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference) placed four players on the All-PCAC Team — Jaidyn Norman and Pomare earned first-team honors, while Ochoa and Justin White were named to the second team.
Palomar advanced to the Southern California Regional 32CA State Championship tournament, where their season ended Feb. 28 in the second round.
“Coming out of high school, I didn’t have any offers that I wanted,” Ochoa said. “I work well with Jaidyn Norman — he’s a good scorer — and Benji Nudo, he’s a good scorer too. Isaiah Pomare as well, because he’s really athletic and I can give him lobs. These players are all good shooters.”
The highlight of Ochoa’s season came in successive games in mid-January, when he scored 41 points against Grossmont and 30 on MiraCosta.
“Against Grossmont, I had like 10 points in the first half,” Ochoa said. “Everything felt normal. Then in the second half, I was getting all my shots — I was in a flow state. I didn’t know what was going on. I was just shooting, making it, and going back. I wasn’t doing anything else. I was just there.”
Watching from afar, Chris Partida, who coached Ochoa last summer with Los Colosos de Tijuana in Mexico’s semiprofessional CIBAPAC league, was hardly surprised by the scoring outburst.
“The first game we played, there were thousands of fans in the arena — standing room only — and Angel had 40 points,” Partida said. “He was going up against grown men, legends of the Mexican basketball scene, and he was giving them the business.”
Partida, formerly a graduate assistant at the now-defunct University of Saint Katherine in San Marcos, currently serves as an assistant coach for the men’s and women’s teams at Dakota College at Bottineau. He compared the competition level of CIBAPAC to NCAA Division II basketball.
“Scoring 41, it was like, it’s about time, man. I knew it was going to happen,” Partida said. “He just understands how to use a ball screen very well. He knows how to go downhill, his temperament — he’s very competitive. That’s what I like about him. He loves the challenge. He loves being guarded by NCAA Division I guys in the [CIBAPAC] league and does not back down from a challenge. That’s him as a dude.
“The process of him having to cross the border every day — that whole border routine, waiting in line, then driving another hour to North County — I love it. It’s why he’s who he is today. It makes him stronger. He has to do that every single day, and he knows what his goals are.”
Ochoa said he plans to return to Palomar for his sophomore year, with the goal of transferring to a Division II program the following season. His ultimate aim is to play professional basketball, whether in Mexico or elsewhere abroad.
“He could definitely play NCAA Division II, without a doubt,” Partida said. “It’s just his size, you know — going up against longer guys and having to finish in the interior. But I really believe — maybe I’m just being biased — that he could even play low-major Division I and be one of those small guards out there.”
“I want to start in Mexico, and then if other opportunities come, I’ll go overseas,” Ochoa said.
