By MARK MOLINA | Staff Writer
After entering the fourth quarter trailing the Brownsville Veterans Memorial Chargers by 10 points, the Pace Vikings eventually found themselves down three with 8.2 seconds to go.
As Pace went to inbound the ball in hopes of running a game-tying play, Brownsville Veterans guard Justin Anaya stole the inbounds pass and drew a foul with 4.4 seconds to go.
Anaya went to the line and split free throws, but it was enough to lift the Chargers over the Vikings 64-60 in District 32-5A action Friday night at Pace.
“When you get these two teams together, it’s a battle,” Chargers coach Larry Brown said. “I knew it was going to go down to the wire. Over the final minutes, we had a little more endurance, hung on and made plays defensively. We got three straight stops down the stretch, and I think that was the key to the game.”
The win gives the Chargers (12-1 in district) at least a share of the district title, and Pace falls to 9-4.
After Pace’s Emilio Padron completed a three-point play with 1:37 remaining to make it a 59-58 game, the Chargers’ defense allowed just two points the rest of the way and went 5 for 8 from the free-throw line down the stretch to put the game away.
Of those stops, two were turnovers by Pace.
Vikings coach Jose Luis Ramirez said while his team took a loss, he won’t knock the effort on either side.
“I saw kids hustling, wanting to win and fighting for every possession that they had,” the Pace coach said. “I’m not at all disappointed. You ultimately want the win, but we both battled and somebody had to win it. I’m satisfied with the way we played. We lost to the district champs; there’s no shame in that.”
Anaya finished the game with a game-high 20 points, and center Damian Maldonado followed with 18 to lead the Chargers.
Pace’s Alex Agado finished the game with 13 points and three 3-pointers to lead the Vikings.
The Vikings led early after buckets from Jose Luis Lozoya and AJ Anzaldua gave them an 11-7 lead midway through the first quarter.
Brownsville Veterans answered quickly with a Maldonado lay-in on the ensuing possession, sparking a 13-4 run to end the first quarter.
Chargers guard Lucky Edge kept the momentum going to start the second quarter with a straightaway trey to put his team up 23-15.
After Anaya split freebies, a Matt Maddox floater along the baseline gave the Chargers a 26-15 lead.
“Brownsville Veterans is a great team, and they were able to explode offensively,” Ramirez said. “We knew they were going to make their runs, so we just hoped to contain them as much as possible and answer some of those runs.”
Pace did just that with a 10-2 spurt, capped by a pull-up triple from Agado following a steal on the other end, cutting the lead to three with 3:46 to play during the first half.
Brownsville Veterans outscored Pace 12-5 during the final minutes, led by seven points from Kelly Davis and a Maldonado 3 with less than one minute before the break.
The Chargers scored 20 points during each of the first two quarters and went 16 for 20 at the line as Pace got into the bonus early in the second quarter.
The Chargers pushed their lead to 13 on a Dax Delgado 3 with 28 seconds to go in the third, only to see Agado sink a triple of his own to beat the buzzer on the other end and send it to the fourth.
Brownsville Veterans led 58-49 with 3:13 to play following an Anaya bucket, but Pace mounted its final run — a 9-1 spurt capped with Padron’s three-point play to make it 59-58.
That was as close as the Vikings got before the Chargers iced the game.
“That shows you, two good teams,” Gibson said. “You have one refusing to lose and one refusing to give up. There was no giveup in Pace. I told these kids Pace wasn’t going to quit, they are going to come back … it’s in their makeup. I also told our kids that we aren’t going to quit because it’s in our makeup.”