BY JON R. LaFOLLETTE | STAFF WRITER
MISSION — As the smack of basketballs echo in the Sharyland Pioneer gym, from across the hall in a newly furbished weight room comes a voice muffled by a glass door and cement walls.
There, the sweat-drenched members of the Pioneer girls basketball team are seated on the floor about the fitness equipment looking solemnly at the source of the muted sound, coach Nicole Villarreal. Villarreal’s timbre, usually a soft and inviting tone, has risen to a level of obvious frustration.
“Do we want to believe we can get better?” Villarreal asks.
The speech marks the conclusion of a Lady Diamondbacks practice which left Villarreal vexed.
“We’re just trying to fix things that are obviously broken,” Villarreal said. “Like not listening.”
Pioneer does indeed have many issues so far this season. The team has kick-started its inaugural run with a dismal 2-10 start. But what ails the Lady Diamondbacks is not necessarily mended by a quick fix. The team’s roster is littered with youth and is absent of any varsity experience.
“I’ve got a great JV team playing at the varsity level,” Villarreal said.
This year marks Villarreal’s fourth season as a head coach and her first with the upstart Pioneer program. Though she has spent more than a decade coaching girls hoops in San Antonio, her position at Pioneer gives her an opportunity to do something bigger than basketball: reconnect with her Valley roots.
Villarreal attended Mercedes and was a member of the basketball team. Her 5-foot-9 frame made her a commodity on the court as she played a variety of positions.
She fondly recalls de-facto camps conducted by her father, a juvenile corrections officer, in her yard.
“I remember my dad bringing out chairs and me doing dribbling drills,” Villarreal said. “I remember him hand-drawing the lines (of the court) with spray paint and me going out there shooting. Ever since I was little, he was my first coach.”
Villarreal’s parents loomed large in her homecoming. She lists being close to mom and dad as the biggest factor which propagated the move.
After graduating, Villarreal wormed her way around the Valley working various assistant coaching gigs. First came Deleon Middle School followed by a two-year stint at Edcouch-Elsa and a two-year stay at Edinburg High where she was the first assistant coach.
Looking to gain more knowledge about the game, Villarreal moved to San Antonio in 2002 where she worked as an assistant coach at Warren High School.
“Basketball (in San Antonio) is so much more advanced than it is in the Valley,” Villarreal said. “They play year-round. There are AAU and club teams. Kids are getting training year-round. It’s not just when we get them in school. I had kids who were gym rats.”
It’s that same no-days-off mentality Villarreal brings to the Lady Diamondbacks. Upon first meeting her team in May, she enrolled them in a summer league in Edinburg and handed them the playbook to study. The move surprised some on the team who weren’t used to such off-season conditioning.
“We were all shocked,” senior guard LeKia Carr said. “Last year we didn’t have playbooks or things like that. Everything she gave us was new to us.
Carr, one of the rare upperclassmen on Villarreal’s team, was a member of the Sharyland High girls basketball squad before the school district split. Carr was given a choice between staying with the tenured program and joining the fledgling Lady Diamondbacks.
“I thought it would be better to join something new rather than something that was already there,” Carr said.
The learning curve has been steep for Pioneer, noticeably on the offensive side of the ball, which falls apart when opposing teams play press defense.
“We beat (Brownsville) Porter, but they don’t play press,” Villarreal said. “If I was an opposing coach, I would always throw the press at us, because we just can’t handle it.”
Even when the Lady Diamondbacks have the lead, they let their youth get the better of them.
“We had a double-digit lead against (La Joya) Juarez-Lincoln,” Villarreal said. “I told the girls to move the ball around, look for good shots near the rim and kill clock to protect the lead. Our first play in the first quarter was a 3-point shot even though we’re not a 3-point shooting team. Sometimes I feel like I’m wasting my timeouts.”
While Villarreal acknowledges her team’s lack of experience, she doesn’t use it as an excuse.
“I could have scheduled an easy schedule for them, but I chose not to” she said. “I chose to schedule some powerhouses because our district is strong.”
Those quality programs include McAllen High, Edinburg Economedes, Edinburg North and Weslaco East. Villarreal sees all of those games as simulations for upcoming District 31-5A contests against Roma, Mission Veterans Memorial and Sharyland.
Villarreal admits this season will a series of tough lessons learned. She does see better days ahead, however.
“I see lots of potential in these girls,” she said. “For now, we’re just having to grow up fast.”