By ROY HESS | THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD
The Santa Rosa Warriors are normally a highly successful run-and-gun basketball team known for hitting a high percentage of shots from all over the court, especially from behind the 3-point line.
But the shots just weren’t falling Tuesday night for the 2016 UIL state tournament qualifiers, and Hanna’s defense had something to do with it as the Golden Eagles raced to a 53-27 non-district triumph over the Warriors at the Hanna gym.
“I think our defense did a good job tonight,” said Hanna coach Fermin Lucio, whose team improved to 6-5. “We forced some bad shots (by Santa Rosa) and closed down on their shooters well.
“Santa Rosa is historically a very good-shooting team, and we did a good job of getting hands in their faces and not giving them any easy looks at the basket,” he added. “I think we did a good job on defense and that allowed us to get into our offense. I was impressed with our defense tonight against a great team like Santa Rosa. They’ve been places where we want to go (such as the state tournament).”
Hanna was up 10-5 after one quarter and led 25-12 at halftime. The Eagles took a 43-21 advantage into the final quarter after outscoring the defending District 32-3A champion Warriors 18-9 in the third period.
Santa Rosa coach Johnny Cipriano said he thought his team would play better Tuesday after a strong finish at a Corpus Christi tournament over the weekend.
“We played horrible,” said Cipriano, whose squad slipped to 2-7. “We’re definitely a work in progress right now. I thought we had improved by winning our last two games at the tournament in Corpus against some tough competition, but we couldn’t hit the side of a barn tonight.
“When we’re missing our shots like we were tonight and not playing good defense, we don’t have a chance (to win),” he added. “We just didn’t play very well tonight. We didn’t shoot well and we didn’t execute offensively or defensively. You’re not going to win very many games playing like that.”
Of the many 3-pointers attempted by the Warriors, only four fell through the net — two by A.B. Lozoya and two by Jonah Agado.
Just four players in all scored for Santa Rosa as Lozoya and Ryan Perez led the way with 10 points apiece. Agado added six points and Sam Torres one.
Hanna had seven players score and was led by low-post player Noah Armstrong, who finished with a game-high 25 points. Armstrong scored most of his points from close range as he came alive thanks to some accurate passes by his teammates to tally nine points in the second quarter and 10 in the third.
“Noah does that on a daily basis,” Lucio said. “He really gets after it and when we do feed him the ball, he’s usually always finishing (by scoring from underneath) or he’s at the free-throw line shooting (because he was fouled).
“We made a huge effort (to get the ball inside),” Lucio added. “In the beginning, we weren’t feeding it down low. Then we made an effort to get it to our ‘bigs,’ whether it was to the high or low post. Noah reaped the benefits of that in the second half.”
Armstrong was the only Hanna player scoring in double figures as teammates Austin Jimenez and Jaime Rucoba each added seven points and Fernie Camacho and Jose Torre contributed six and five points, respectively.
Hanna’s biggest lead of 27 points came twice during the waning minutes. A jump shot from the free-throw line by Armstrong made it 50-23 with 5:07 left before a pair of free throws by Camacho boosted the lead to 52-25 with 2:24 remaining.
Hanna’s next game is scheduled at La Joya Juarez-Lincoln next Tuesday, while Santa Rosa next plays against La Joya Palmview in the Hidalgo Tournament beginning Thursday.