By JOSHUA McKINNEY, Staff Writer
It was small ball against power in the paint during Athlos Leadership Academy’s first playoff game, and strength prevailed in the end.
Making its first postseason appearance in its second season of varsity basketball, Athlos beat Alamo IDEA 65-46 in a Texas Charter School Academic & Athletic League regional playoff game Thursday at Athlos.
“I’ve had a bunch of these boys since they were in middle school and they came up with me, so they kind of know our philosophy already and we have a very, very good relationship,” Athlos coach Jose Lucio said. “They’re not just my players, they’re kind of like my boys. I care about them a lot.”
Athlos’ two big men, Cristian Hernandez and Damian Maldonado, used their height — both players measure out at 6-foot-4 — to control the glass on both ends and give the Titans an unstoppable force on offense.
“They’re big time,” Lucio said. “(Maldonado) was our leading scorer last year. He’s 6-4, and he’s an eighth grader right now. He’s still growing. We went to a Mercedes tournament this year, and he was dropping 15, 16 points. He’s something special. (Hernandez), that’s our big guy. He gets every board, and he’s a hustler. He’s our leader, he’s our captain.
“Having those two big guys is a reason why where we’re at right now.”
The big men combined for 19 of Athlos’ 37 rebounds in the game, compared to 17 for Alamo IDEA.
Maldonado, an eighth-grader who plays on varsity, tied Hernandez with a game-high 20 points, and led Athlos with 11 rebounds and seven assists. Hernandez also had eight rebounds in the game, and Manny Tejada scored 13 for Athlos.
“Playing as a team and getting the ball to our bigs (was key),” Maldonado said. “We did have size over them and our game is to run the ball on fastbreaks, and when we slow it down, to feed it to the bigs and get wide-open shots.”
Jesus Sanchez led Alamo IDEA with 19 points and seven steals. Eli Calderon scored 14 points and led his team with seven assists.
Alamo IDEA coach Rene Garces said his team gave everything it had against Athlos.
“It was a really tough game going against those 6-footers,” Alamo IDEA coach Rene Garces said. “They have really good footwork. You can tell they have really good coaching. I’m happy that if we went down, we went down swinging.”
Raul Perez made a 3 to give Alamo IDEA the lead at the start of the game. The teams swapped leads, but an 11-2 run by Athlos put the home team ahead 17-9.
Alamo IDEA closed the first quarter with a seven-point scoring streak, capped by a buzzer-beating shot from Sanchez to cut Athlos’ lead to 17-16.
Athlos started the second quarter with a 9-2 run and never looked back. Hernandez and Maldonado combined for 16 points during a 20-point second quarter to take a 37-26 lead into halftime.
The win sends the Titans to the regional semifinal round, where they are set to play San Benito IDEA at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Rio Grande Valley Vipers’ practice facility in Edinburg.
Joshua McKinney covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6663 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @joshuabvherald.