LA FERIA — The La Feria Lionettes have not been the sharpest shooters throughout the last two days, but they haven’t needed to be.
Fueled by points off turnovers, the Lionettes punched their ticket to the championship game of the Tommie Wiseman Tournament with a 42-25 win over the Brownsville Rivera Lady Raiders in the semifinals Friday night in La Feria.
The Lionettes frustrated the Lady Raiders with the full-court press and opened the door for easy scores in the paint on fast breaks.
“We pride ourselves in that full-court pressure. When that’s working for us, the game gets a whole lot easier,” La Feria head coach Angel Martinez said. “The girls get a lot more confident when the ball pressure is there and the defense is playing well. That has to do with the girls getting after it and feed off those turnovers.”
Now, the Lionettes will advance to the championship and face Mission/Zapata today at 1:30 p.m. in the main La Feria gym.
The Lionettes took an early 16-6 lead and held the Lady Raiders to just nine points in the quarter.
Six came on two three-point field goals, and the other three from the line, as Rivera struggled from the field.
“We kept on missing easy shots early. That allows us to get into our pressure defense, but we kept missing those shots because we didn’t have any legs under us,” Rivera head coach Willie Brown said.
As far as turnovers go, Brown described it as the “story of their lives.”
”That’s the way games have been for us all year,” he said.
The Lionettes went into the half up 25-14 and held the Lady Raiders to a combined 10 points in the second and third quarters.
After hitting a three to start the second half, Rivera scored just two more points in the third and the Lionettes finished the quarter on a 10-2 run and led by as 19 in the fourth quarter.
The Lionettes were led by Illiana Ayala’s 11 points, but also got steady output from Connie Ceballos, who scored 10 and according to coach Martinez is in a shooting slump during this tournament along with the rest of the team.
However, that’s not expected to continue.
“The girls have hit a bunch of threes during the season, but not in this tournament,” Martinez said. “When (Connie) gets hot from the outside, it opens our game, but we have to stick with what’s working and that’s our full-court pressure.”
Aside from being a bit cold from outside, the Lionettes have won every game by an average of 19 points.
They dismissed Porter in round one 48-22 and La Joya 35-21 in the quarterfinals of the championship bracket.