By STEFAN MODRICH, Staff Writer
SAN ANTONIO — Los Fresnos’ unselfish style of play drew widespread acclaim from coaches and high school basketball fans around the state and got the program four rounds deep in the University Interscholastic League’s Class 6A playoffs.
But the No. 20 Falcons finally ran into a team specially equipped to stop them in Northside Brandeis.
Los Fresnos’ season came to an end with a 64-52 defeat in the regional semifinals at the hands of the No. 22 Broncos on Friday at Littleton Gymnasium in San Antonio.
Brandeis will face the winner of Converse Judson and Laredo United at 2 p.m. Saturday in the regional final.
“Brandeis is a heck of a team,” Los Fresnos coach Marco Hinojosa said. “They’re well-coached, we knew it was going to be a tough task. Those guys competed well, they just did.”
Hinojosa added he thought the difference in the game was Brandeis’ 3-point shooting ability. The Broncos (32-3) made nine 3s and shot nearly 50 percent from behind the arc.
Kyle Schaefer led the way for Brandeis with 17 points, and he and Tanner Brown (13 points) each made three 3s.
Brandeis coach Marc Gardner exploited matchup advantages with long wings like Gavin Gibson, who finished with 15 points, and Andrew Lazinbat, who added 14 points.
The Broncos’ 6-foot-4 center, Ty Fontenot, helped Brandeis control the glass.
Elian Gonzalez scored 14 points, Gerry Martinez had 13 and Ricky Altamirano added 12 for the Falcons.
“We knew we could win this game, but at the end of the day, we just competed all the way to the end,” Altamirano said. “I just love that I played for my brothers, and we had fun and did what we did best.”
It was a tight game separated at most by a possession or two for all but the last four minutes of the fourth quarter. Brandeis outscored Los Fresnos 20-10 during the final period.
The first quarter ended with both teams even at 17. The Falcons made three 3-pointers in the period, and just one more after that, which came in the fourth quarter.
Brandeis led 27-26 at the half.
The Broncos began to tighten their grip on the game when Gibson took advantage of a mismatch against Alex Moreno (four points) with 1:46 to go, drawing a foul and making the basket but missing the ensuing free throw and putting his team ahead 42-38.
“We knew Los Fresnos was a very good team,” Gardner said. “We were kind of familiar with them, but until you see them in person. … Their style is so different than anything you see in our district. The fact that they’re athletic and able to drive, it took us a while to match up to that.”
Gardner said the key for his squad in the second half was more motion on offense.
“When (Los Fresnos) went zone on us halfway through the first quarter, we just started standing around and firing 3s,” Gardner said. “And they weren’t falling, and you could see from our body language that we got kind of frustrated. So that’s what we talked about (at halftime), that we’ve got to keep moving, and I thought we finally started doing that in the second half.”
The Falcons trailed 44-42 at the end of the third quarter.
Gonzalez swished a corner 3 to narrow the lead to 46-45 with 6:01 to go, and that was the closest the Falcons came, as Brown and Schaefer combined for 13 points in the fourth.
“Basketball is a game of runs,” Hinojosa said. “It was one possession that hurt us. We went for a 3, and that opened up (the deficit) to eight. We just couldn’t recover from that.”
Schaefer’s left-handed floater gave the Broncos a 14-point advantage with a minute left, the largest lead of the night.
The Falcons end the season with a mark of 33-4.
Gonzalez said the program’s 2019-20 season will be a source of motivation for future Falcons and other schools across the Rio Grande Valley.
“We wanted to set the bar for the young ones,” Gonzalez said. “We wanted to show the Valley that we could do it, that we competed against a talented school like Brandeis and show them that anything is possible. We had to go through a lot of adversity, by not getting past the second round (last season). We got here to the fourth round, and we want people to look up to us and show them that they can do it.”
In 2020 and beyond, it will be the responsibility of Martinez, Moreno and others to uphold the tradition of success the Falcons have established.
“Our job is to come back and make it past the Sweet 16,” Martinez said. “These seniors set a high standard, and I’m trying to live up to that standard.”