BROWNSVILLE — Gerry Martinez dominated Brownsville area basketball the past four years at Los Fresnos and Brownsville St. Joseph, two seasons spent at each school. Martinez finished his career with the Bloodhounds to cap off an amazing high school career that saw him score more than 2,000 points.
Martinez averaged 26.9 ppg his senior season. He also grabbed seven rebounds and found his teammates three times a game. Martinez is the Brownsville Herald’s Most Valuable Player for the 2022-23 season.
Martinez’s silky smooth layups, great free-throw shooting and a lethal outside shot terrorized defenses, but it was the strides in his defensive game that continued to set Martinez apart.
The guard was tasked with stopping top outside threats this and delivered with a career-high in steals. Martinez finished with 141 steals, averaging five steals a game for a Bloodhounds team that relied on Martinez more because of the graduation of key players .
“For me personally, I made it a big goal in the offseason,” Martinez said. “I want to guard the best player. I do not care who it was and I think I did a pretty good job in the offseason in order to put myself in the position to succeed.”
Martinez admitted that the team’s success was not what the team had hoped for.
“We overcame so much this year,” Martinez said. “Not having a big for most of the year, it hurt us. I feel like my team needed me more this year. We had players last year that could take the weight off my shoulders. This year there was more weight on my shoulders, but I had been working my whole life for moments like that.”
The Bloodhounds made up for the lack of size and depth with heart. Brownsville St. Joseph went 21-8 overall and 7-3 in TAPPS 5A District 4, but only lost one game, a playoff game, by double digits.
“It was a fun four years,” Martinez said. “A lot of ups and downs, but the downs make the ups a lot better. I feel like every year I got better.”
The 6-foot guard is going to continue his playing days at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. Bloodhounds head coach Sam Lucio praised Martinez’s work ethic when the 2,000-point career scorer signed in April.
“It was like having another coach on the court,” Lucio said in April. “His basketball IQ is very high for a high school kid. We are going to miss him.”