GREG LUCA | STAFF WRITER
ROMA — From the opening tip of Tuesday’s Class 6A regional quarterfinal, McAllen Rowe senior Alex Keith saw his team get flustered by Laredo Alexander’s defense. Whenever the Warriors got the ball past halfcourt, the Bulldogs jumped forward to trap, relentlessly hounding Rowe into turnovers and tough shots.
Rowe never got anything going offensively, falling behind early and rarely threatening in a season-ending 73-53 loss.
“We were a little shell-shocked by the defensive pressure, non-stop, 100 percent,” Keith said. “It kind of caught us off-guard, and on offense we rushed things. It threw everything off.”
Rowe hit just 14 of 51 shots for the game (27.4 percent) with 12 turnovers. Typically a potent 3-point shooting team, Rowe’s looks from beyond the arc were almost always contested or from well beyond 20 feet. The Warriors finished the game just 4 of 26 from 3-point range.
“We just didn’t compete as well as we usually do,” Rowe coach Jose Luis Yebra said. “We were tentative. We were not attacking. We were not working together as a group. Their trap hurt us there for a little bit, and we just kind of panicked.”
Keith said the Warriors hadn’t seen a defense that stout this season, adding that Alexander’s harassment tired Rowe out over the course of the game.
The Warriors tried to adjust by pulling their post players back to catch outlet passes and relieve the pressure. Yebra urged his team to move the ball side to side before attacking with penetration. Neither strategy worked.
“They were just all over the place,” Keith said. “It was pretty tough for us.”
Keith finished with 13 points, 4 rebounds and 6 assists on 2-of-12 shooting, while Freddy Ayala also had 13 points with 5 rebounds.
Daniel Sotuyo, who entered as Rowe’s leading scorer with 13.7 points per game, finished with 10. Seven of those came during the fourth quarter, before which Sotuyo had connected on just 1 of 13 shot attempts.
“As soon as we got the ball, we kind of rushed it on offense,” Keith said. “We had to take quick shots. That kind of messed us up. We have to learn to relax. When we have a good shot, we have to take advantage. Tonight, we just didn’t.”
Alexander scored the first nine points to build an early lead as Rowe misfired on its first eight shot attempts. The Warriors found their stroke to pull within 9-7, but from there it was all Alexander.
The Bulldogs stretched their lead to 17-7 with an 8-0 run, then pressed the advantage to 25-11 early in the second quarter. Rowe never again got within single digits.
“We put our heads down a bit,” Keith said. “We can’t do that. We’ve been down before. We came back and won. It was nothing new. Just being in the playoffs puts a lot of pressure on the other guys. It’s hard trying to play catch-up.”
Rowe finishes the season with a 26-11 record, having advanced to the regional quarterfinals for the first time since 2013.
With Keith the only senior graduating from the starting lineup, Rowe seems a strong bet to notch a 24th consecutive playoff appearance in 2017.
“We’re very happy with the season that we had,” Yebra said. “Our kids came a long way from when we started the season to now. Nobody thought the way we started the season that we were going to be any good at all, and here we are being one of 32 teams in the state of Texas in the 6A playoffs. A lot of teams would love to have that opportunity.”