BY NATE KOTISSO | STAFF WRITER
PHARR — The fight for a Class 4A school like Hidalgo is seemingly never-ending.
The Pirates were a 31-win club in addition to the Valley’s last girls team standing in the 2018 UIL playoffs. Hidalgo lost to Corpus Christi West Oso by four points in the third round Feb. 20 in La Feria.
Hidalgo entered this season without one of, if not, the big key to last year’s third round run in point guard Ashley Arjona. A first team All-Area selection by The Monitor last season, Arjona graduated along with her twin sister Alexis.
The Rio Grande Valley Basketball Coaches Association picked the Pirates as the 10th best team in the Valley and selected PSJA North at No. 5. Hidalgo opened its season at PSJA North and made an emphatic statement on the Raiders’ home floor. The Pirates prevailed 49-45.
“I feel like we’ve been competing with all these schools and sometimes, like tonight, we beat them,” Hidalgo senior forward Barbie Gutierrez said. “I honestly believe we should be closer to the top.”
Replacing Ashley Arjona at point guard is junior Savannah Sanchez. Sanchez connected on three 3-pointers and led her team in scoring with 14 points.
“She’s our girl,” Hidalgo coach Saul Arjona said of Sanchez. “She’s got fire in her eyes all the time. If she sees an opening, she’s going to take it. The good thing about Savannah is she can drive, she can pass and she can shoot. She’s a three-dimensional player for us. She does a good job of trusting the girls on the inside and trusting the girls on the outside.”
The Pirates (1-0) took a wait-and-see approach in the first 16 minutes, trailing by three at halftime. Coach Arjona didn’t feel comfortable employing his pressure defense on the Raiders early. Once the Pirates turned up the pace in the second half, Hidalgo took control of the game.
The Pirates trailed 30-22 in the third quarter, but their pressure helped spur them onto a 10-0 run to take their first lead of the half. Hidalgo poured it on thanks to an 11-0 spurt which allowed the Pirates to open up a 14-point lead with 2:50 to play.
“We went in a man-to-man defense to start, but I saw we were playing relaxed,” Arjona said. “I wanted to see who was going to last the most. Our pressure defense has been our bread and butter. The girls are in good enough shape and they attacked. It worked out for us.”
Gutierrez put in 11 while Elisa De la Peña tacked on nine points for the Pirates.
“Our team is getting better with every practice,” Sanchez said. “We’ve been communicating better on the floor. We’re still working in some girls who just came from volleyball. We still need to work on our conditioning, but I think we’re going to be faster this year than we were last year.”
PSJA North (0-1) is searching for a second scoring option next to junior point guard Catie Rodriguez. They appeared to find one in sophomore Carolina Sanchez, who led all scorers in the gym with 17. Rodriguez added nine for the Raiders.
“I thought we did a good job of controlling the tempo early, but then the wheels fell off,” PSJA North coach Randy Bocanegra said. “We got in a comfort zone, they went on a surge and we couldn’t recover.”
The Pirates and Raiders will compete in La Joya’s Brawl on the Border Tournament, which begins Thursday.