Belen baseball wears Las Aguilas jerseys to honor local heritage

Belen High School baseball players took the field in black jerseys trimmed in maroon and gold with Las Aguilas across the front, a change that turned a regular season game into a visible statement about the city’s Spanish roots and the people who live them every day. Belen beat Valencia 17-9 on Friday, May 1, and the uniforms gave the win a deeper local meaning.

Coach Justin Miller said the idea grew out of his two years coaching in Belen, where many players and students speak Spanish and have been teaching him bits of the language along the way. Miller wanted the team to wear something that reflected the place it represents, not just a school nickname on a jersey. His staff includes assistants Jon Michael Perea and Rufilo Sena, and the players embraced the concept, seeing it as a way to connect school pride with family and community identity.

Las Aguilas means the eagles, but the Spanish script did more than translate a mascot. In Belen, where the city’s original name, Nuestra Señora de Belen, dates to 1740 and means Our Lady of Bethlehem, the choice echoed a long bilingual history. The city later shortened the name to Belen, itself Spanish for Bethlehem. That heritage still shapes a community also known for its railroad-era Hub City identity, and the jerseys put that history on display in a setting students and neighbors could recognize immediately.

Miller said the design was meant to show that the team represents Belen as a whole, not just a baseball program. The black uniforms, paired with the school’s maroon and gold, made the script lettering stand out while keeping the look tied to Belen High School tradition. The result was not a gimmick or a one-night novelty, but a small public sign of who wears the school colors and whose language and culture are carried onto the field.

The timing also mattered. Belen entered the postseason seeded No. 4 for the 4A state baseball championships after an 18-8 season, showing a program that is competitive on the field and rooted in the community off it. In a county where school identity often overlaps with family history and local heritage, the Las Aguilas jerseys made that connection easy to see.