By JOSHUA McKINNEY, Staff Writer
Coach Sam Lucio and St. Joseph Academy took a different approach to teaching offense this week, and it showed against Rio Grande City Thursday.
The Bloodhounds beat Rio Grande City 57-37 at St. Joseph behind the strength of a 33-10 first half.
“They really executed the plays,” Lucio said. “We broke it down in practice a little bit more (Wednesday). We slowed it down a little bit because we’ve been in catch-up mode from basketball. Now that we’ve had a couple of more practices than we did the last couple of weeks, we really slowed it down and talked through it. (The players) really asked questions, and we found the kinks that we had.
“(The improvement) showed in the first half when we moved the ball well. We had a couple of easy shots.”
Jorge Villarreal led St. Joseph scorers with 14 points and had seven assists. Rodolfo Cabido scored 12 points, and Jose Martinez and Carlos Esteve each scored nine points.
Raul Garza led Rio Grande City with 10 points. Aaron Castillo scored six points and had five assists.
Rio Grande City was within two points early in the first quarter, but St. Joseph’s offense went on a 10-2 run to end the first with the 16-6 lead.
The second quarter featured a dominant effort by the Bloodhounds on both sides of the court.
St. Joseph started the quarter on an eight-point run and finished the quarter with 17 points while limiting the Rattlers to four. They finished the first half with a 33-10 lead.
Lucio said the Bloodhounds emphasized defensive execution in practice this week, and it showed on the scored board.
“We trouble with a couple of teams on three-point shooting,” he said. “We had a team last week hit 13 on us and another made seven. A lot of those were open shots, so we’ve worked on getting a hand (in the shooter’s face). If they make a shot with our hand in their face we’ll applaud them, but we can’t give up open shots and I think we did a pretty good job of closing out to the shooters tonight.”
The Rattlers didn’t score from beyond the three-point arc against St. Joseph, and the Bloodhounds finished the game with eight steals.
“Before the game, Coach talked to us and told us that defense wins championships,” Villarreal said. “We want to win district this year.”
Rio Grande City’s highest-scoring quarter was the fourth, when the Rattlers scored 18 points and cut St. Joseph’s lead to 20 points by the final buzzer. Lupe Alaniz scored eight points during the fourth quarter for Rio Grande City.
Rio Grande City coach Juan Aldape declined to comment.
St. Joseph’s record improves to 7-5 for the season.
Joshua McKinney writes for the Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6663 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @joshuabvherald.