By MARK MOLINA | STAFF WRITER
From the opening tip, the Brownsville Veterans Memorial Chargers had no answers for the Mercedes Tigers, whose offense came out red-hot.
Jared Castaneda scored a game-high 21 points, Brandon Lozoya added 17 and the Tigers handed the Chargers their first District 32-5A loss, 71-51 on Tuesday night at Brownsville Veterans.
The Chargers fell to 7-1 in 32-5A play and Mercedes improved to 6-2, staying in the thick of the district race with six games to go.
“ We knew (Brownsville Veterans) was undefeated and in first place for a reason,” Mercedes coach Rick Trevino said. “They do a heck of a job defensively, but we just came out from the start with a lot of energy. I just saw a lot of energy from the kids even when we were making mistakes, guys were picking each other up. We talked about not getting too low with those low times or getting to high with those high times, and they did a really good job of doing that.
Mercedes’ offense set the tone early, starting the game on an 8-0 run and leading by 11 after the first quarter.
The Tigers scored at least 16 points in every quarter, and the Chargers had offensive lulls early and late down the stretch, bookending the game with seven-point quarters.
Brownsville Veterans coach Larry Gibson said the Chargers were simply bested.
“ It was one of those games where we couldn’t make shots and (Mercedes) played great,” the Chargers’ coach said. “It wasn’t our shooting, it was the way (Mercedes) played; they outplayed us. They wanted it worse than we did, and they came out here with more get up and went after it. They took it to us, and we didn’t respond to the way they attacked us.
“ The best team won the game tonight by far.”
Buckets from Kelly Davis and Matt Maddox to open the second quarter made it an 18-12 game, but back-to-back layups from Lozoya pushed the lead to 10.
Castaneda also made a pair of timely 3-pointers in the quarter, with both countering Chargers baskets to push the lead back to double digits.
Castaneda and Lozoya combined for 15 of the team’s 18 second-quarter points, and the Tigers went into the break up 36-22.
Lozoya sunk a three-point midway through the third quarter to put the Tigers up 16, but back-to-back buckets from Chargers’ guard Justin Ayala sparked an 18-8 run.
The spurt featured Chargers center Damian Maldonando, who scored eight of the Chargers’ next 10 points to make it a 52-44 game after three quarters.
“ We knew (Brownsville Veterans) was going to come out with (a run),” Trevino said. “When we talked about it between the third and fourth quarter, we said, ‘It wasn’t bad, they had some things go their way. Now we need to switch the momentum back our way, and they did a really good job of doing that.”
Brownsville Veterans got within six after a Matt Maddox make to cap the run.
The Tigers countered with an 11-0 run that featured Castaneda’s fourth trey of the game to push the lead to 58-46 and ultimately shut the door on the Chargers.
“ It was very frustrating,” Gibson said. “We came out and tried to fight back. We got it back to under 10 points, which I said if we did we would have a chance, but in the fourth quarter (Mercedes) scores those points. That was the game right there; we had nothing left.”
Maldonado led the Chargers with 17 points. Maddox added 12, and Kelly Davis scored 11.
Mercedes’ Ramiro Ortiz was the third Tigers player in double digits on the night with 10 points.
In the preceding girls game, the Mercedes Lady Tigers defeated the Brownsville Veterans Lady Chargers 47-28.
The Lady Tigers were led by Sellie Gonzalez and Mallory Noriega, who scored 15 and 14 points, respectively.
Catie Esquivel scored eight points for the Lady Chargers, and Destiny Contreras added 7.