By CLAIRE CRUZ, Staff Writer
BROWNSVILLE — The Brownsville Pace Lady Vikings and La Feria Lionettes battled in a physical, defensive game Saturday that needed overtime to be settled.
The Lady Vikings held a three-point lead with 13 seconds remaining in regulation. But a free throw cut their lead to two, and then the Lionettes forced a turnover on a Pace rebound to get the ball back under its own basket. La Feria’s Alena Benjamin received the inbounds pass and promptly put the ball through the hoop to tie the game at 36 with 4.9 seconds on the clock, sending it to overtime.
All five points scored during the extra five minutes came from the free throw line, but Pace was slightly more efficient with its chances. A missed free throw by the Lionettes with nine seconds left in overtime proved to be the difference, and the Lady Vikings held on for a hard-fought 39-38 victory.
“Give credit to (La Feria) for pushing back the whole game. We were fighting back and forth, and I’m glad we came away with the win,” Pace coach Eddie Lozano said. “(Before overtime, I told them) it’s back to 0-0, so let’s go back to being that same nagging defense that we were the whole game and see if it pays off, and it did. Win by a mile or win by an inch, it’s the same.”
The Lionettes immediately took control of the contest during the first quarter. Their quick hands notched steals as the Lady Vikings tried to bring the ball down, and Alani Garza locked down the paint. Sabrina Castaneda drove hard to the bucket and finished shots through contact to put La Feria on top 10-4 after two 3-point plays.
Pace matched La Feria’s tenacity to go on a 6-0 scoring run late in the quarter, led by the defensive effort from Ashley Gonzalez, Maddy Curry and Andie Lomeli-Lozano. Curry hit a 3-pointer during the first quarter and another to start the second to give Pace its first lead at 14-13.
A plethora of forced turnovers and solid defense in the paint resulted in a low-scoring second quarter. The Lady Vikings outscored La Feria 8-5 to tie the game at 18 at halftime behind their relentless defense. Pace defenders swarmed to the ball to keep La Feria from running its offense, following the example of Gonzalez, the Lady Vikings’ most experienced player.
“I liked our overall effort on defense. We were just nagging them all game. Got into a little foul trouble, but that’s what they have to learn from,” Lozano said. “I have a lot of young girls, so they’re still learning, and the fact that we don’t have tournaments this year is very big as far as experience. Ashley’s our only three-year returner, so she has the most experience on the team and that’s what we expect from her — we expect her to lead the team, run the offense and run the defense.”
Garza, Rosales and Lillian Martinez played hard during the third quarter to create scoring chances for the Lionettes, but the shots didn’t want to fall. La Feria didn’t finish on layups against Pace’s defensive pressure, and the Lady Vikings dominated the boards. They raced down the court after retrieving La Feria’s misses for easy points with the Lionettes behind defensively to take a 28-26 lead heading to the fourth.
The fourth quarter saw no offense for almost three minutes, until Ariel Barrientes made her presence known. She scored five points in the frame and defended and rebounded well to keep the Lady Vikings on top.
“Effort is what she brings to the table. Rebounds, going up for layups, making her free throws … she gives us that little extra effort, and when she does that she can be very, very dangerous,” Lozano said about Barrientes.
La Feria struggled with injuries throughout the game, but suffered two big losses in the fourth as Garza and Martinez both went down and didn’t return. Emma Ramos stepped up and dropped four points to help the Lionettes stay in the game. Rosales, Benjamin and Alexis Villarreal played hard in overtime, but the Pace attack was too much for the Lionettes to overcome.
Gonzalez led all scorers with 13 points, and Barrientes added nine — all scored during the second half — to help Pace get the win. Castaneda (10 points) and Martinez (eight points) were the top Lionettes scorers.
“I’m very proud of the girls. They finished the game strong, and they hung in there,” La Feria coach Delia Lopez said. “They do what we ask of them, and they don’t complain. They’re awesome, a good group of girls. We ran the defense well. We still need to work on running our offense, but the defense did pretty good.”