By MARK MOLINA, Staff Writer
KINGSVILLE — Brownsville Veterans Memorial basketball coach Larry Gibson said earlier in the week that he wanted his team to be wary of how athletic the Corpus Christi Flour Bluff Hornets can be.
It just so happens the Chargers chose to combat that by being the aggressors from the start.
Brownsville Veterans came out swinging and built a 19-point lead minutes in to the first quarter, and never looked back as it rolled to a 74-53 Class 5A area playoff victory Friday night in Kingsville.
The Chargers’ offense opened the game red-hot and running with a 24-3 surge, fueled by a pair of Matt Maddox 3-pointers and a trio of Damian Maldonado layups.
“I think (Flour Bluff) came in thinking we weren’t going to attack them, but that was our whole game plan from the beginning,” Gibson said. “We were going to attack them; we weren’t afraid of them or nothing like that. I think they underestimated us, like we would back down, but we came out and took it to them. I thought we kind of manhandled them and we were the tougher team. My kids came out, gave me everything they had, their busted their butts and did a great job.”
The Chargers are back in the regional semifinal round for the first time since 2017 and will take on the winner of the game involving Sharyland Pioneer and Corpus Christi Miller, which will be held today in Santa Rosa.
Maldonado finished the night with a game-high 22 points, Justin Anaya added 19 and Maddox put in 10 for the Chargers.
Flour Bluff’s Dorian Bertero and Jayden Terell each scored 13 to lead the Hornets.
As good as the Chargers’ offense looked, their defense looked just as dominant, holding the Hornets’ offense to just one field goal in the first 7 1/2 minutes and taking a 23-10 lead after the first quarter.
“We’ve always hung our hat on our defense,” Gibson said. “We’ve hung our hat on that all year, and today we came through. We knew who we had to guard, and I think we did a great job guarding them. Defense won the game. However many points we scored is probably the most we scored in the last 10, 15 games. Our defense carried us as it always has all year.”
After a Bertero trey to open the second quarter cut the Hornets’ deficit to 10, Chargers guard Lucky Edge, fresh off the bench, managed to sneak away from the Flour Bluff and hit back-to-back wide-open buckets to push the lead back to 14.
Edge finished the night with eight points and earned them all in the second quarter, helping the Chargers take a 43-30 lead into the break.
The tempo slowed during the third quarter, and that benefitted the Hornets as they strung together an 11-5 run, capped off by a Terell triple to make it 49-41 with 1:25 to go in the frame.
Maldonado orchestrated a 6-0 run to end the quarter as he put in a pair of freebies, blocked a layup that led to an Anaya transition layup, and then a laid in a bucket of his own in a span of 40 seconds to push the lead to 55-41 after three.
“We wanted to come in and leave no doubt,” Maldonado said. “We believe that we can hoop with anyone. We do it for our seniors and we do it for the ones that are leaving. We’re all about the team, and we play for each other.”
The Chargers threw it in cruise control and put the game away, outscoring Flour Bluff 19-12 during the fourth.