MARK MOLINA | Staff Writer
HIDALGO — As expected, early season basketball games might bring some sloppy play.
However, the Raymondville Lady Bearkats overcame a sluggish start to dismiss the Valley View Lady Tigers 37-18 on Saturday morning thanks to a fourth quarter sparked by strong ball movement and solid defense.
The Lady Bearkats led 17-16 late in the third, but after cleaning up their ball movement got easy scores in the paint and finished the game on a 20-2 run.
Defensively, Raymondville also forced Valley View into turnovers under the basket, deflected passes and held the Lady Tigers to just two points in the fourth quarter.
“In the fourth quarter we finally started to move the ball around and getting it inside to (Camille Kafka), who is one of our major returning players from last year,” Raymondville head coach Felix Silva said.
“We worked on a new defense this morning, but we switched back to our man-to-man defense. I thought our girls did a pretty nice job.”
The win improves Raymondville to 2-0 on the young season.
Prior to Raymondville‘s final run, both offenses struggled as they threw away passes and couldn’t convert on offensive rebounds.
Raymondville jumped out to a quick 6-0 lead to start the game, but Valley view closed the gap and went into the half down 14-12.
The Lady Bearkats scored just four points in the second quarter after scoring 10 in the first.
However, the Lady Kats hit the boards hard and created second-chance opportunities, which were key late and helped get Kafka going after a slow start.
Kafka finished with 17 points to lead all scorers and scored 13 of those points in the fourth quarter.
She also made all seven of her free throws to help pull her team away.
Also turning in a double-digit game was Raymondville’s Annabell Hernandez, who finished with 13 points. Six came in the first quarter.
For Valley View, Evelyn Saenz led the way with eight points, including five in the first quarter alone, helping the Lady Tigers stay afloat and close the gap early.
Raymondville will not be in action again until the McAllen Border Bash tournament, which starts Thursday.