By CLAIRE CRUZ, Staff Writer
RIO HONDO — The Port Isabel Tarpons showed off their speed to dominate the second half of their District 32-4A road game against Rio Hondo and pick up an 80-48 win.
Port Isabel used a tenacious defense and consistent rebounding to create offensive chances en route to earning its fourth straight win. Tarpons coach Mike Hazelton said this team plays different than past teams, leaning on an abundance of athleticism. The Tarpons had nine of 10 players on the roster contribute to the scoring.
“We have a good, scrappy team,” Hazelton said. “We’re not the tallest team on the planet, but we have decent size. We got a lot of good, athletic kids and we’re trying to take advantage of what we do have. (This win is) going to help our confidence. Our other games were a lot tighter than this. This is only our fifth game of the year, and we were playing teams in their 12th or 13th game. It seems like we’ve gotten better every game.”
The first quarter was a back-and-forth affair that ended with Rio Hondo holding a 14-13 lead. The Bobcats knocked down three 3-pointers — two from Sam Vasquez — in the frame, and solid play from Lucas Hernandez in the paint energized the squad.
Port Isabel took control in the second after opening the quarter with a 7-0 scoring run. The Tarpons pushed the tempo of the game as Will Camacho, Gilbert Medina and Daniel Zammaron swiped steals then raced down the court for transition buckets. Kaiden Martinez’s physicality down low provided a boost that helped the Tarpons take a 10-point lead midway through the quarter.
Rio Hondo responded with its own 7-0 run to cut into the deficit. Ivan Juarez rebounded well and scored six points as a key part of the comeback. The Bobcats’ defensive effort improved, and they drove hard to the basket to draw fouls to help close the lead.
Zammaron and Jeffrey Smith played well to close out the first half and give Port Isabel back some of its cushion. Smith scored all five of his points during the final minutes of the second quarter to make it 35-29 in favor of the Tarpons at halftime. Hazelton emphasized finishing layups and locking up Rio Hondo’s shooters in the locker room, and his team executed during the second half.
“We probably blew about seven layups in the first half. I told them at halftime, we left at least 14 points off the board on missed layups,” Hazelton said. “We knew they had a couple good shooters but sometimes we still couldn’t locate them, so we had to get on that.”
The Tarpons’ defense limited Rio Hondo’s scoring to 12 points in the third and seven in the fourth quarter. The Bobcats struggled to keep up with Port Isabel’s speed and were often a step behind defensively, which allowed the Tarpons to control the boards and swing the ball around to find open looks in their halfcourt setup.
Port Isabel never let up defensively and took advantage of some sloppy offensive possessions by the Bobcats to rack up the steals. The Tarpons raced up and down the court, turning rebounds and turnovers into transition layups that they made much more efficiently in the second half. Martinez and Cole Pinkerton held down the paint throughout the contest to aid the big win.
Rio Hondo chipped away at the lead a bit in the third as Ethan Jeradiah hit back-to-back 3-pointers, but the speedy onslaught of the Tarpons was too much for the Bobcats as the game went on.
“Credit to Port Isabel for dictating the pace of the game. We could never really get comfortable on the floor,” Bobcats coach Mike Alvarez said. “Early on, some shots were falling from the corners for 3, and I think they kind of fell in love with shooting the outside shot instead of attacking the basket. Our whole thing is telling them to drive, get a layup or get to the free-throw line or find the open man, but because they saw those shots going in early, they ended up settling a little more than my liking.”
Juarez and Jeradiah each contributed 14 points to lead Rio Hondo in scoring. Zammaron (15 points), Medina (15 points), Pinkerton (13 points) and Martinez (13 points) were the top scorers for Port Isabel.
Port Isabel and Rio Hondo’s girls teams also were scheduled to face off Tuesday, but the game had to be postponed because of COVID-19 concerns for the Lady Tarpons.