BY NATHANIEL MATA | STAFF WRITER
“Our keys to the game was to control the tempo. We had to outrun them and use the court to our advantage because they’re a good ball club, they’re tall and lanky.” Miller coach Maurice Bastian said. “Defense is our bread and butter. We play stifling man-to-man defense and try to mix it up between half court and full-court pressure.”
Bastian said that his team’s football DNA fuels the ‘in your face’ pressure. Miller was 5-2 against the RGV coming into the area matchup, including wins over McAllen Rowe and Harlingen High.
“My entire team plays football so automatically we’re aggressive,” Bastian said. “However, we try to be smart, keep everything in front of us.”
The District 30-5A runner up, Miller took a 12-3 lead into the second quarter. Pioneer, however, eventually made the Bucs pay for not pulling away.
Darik Briseno made one of two free throws and Taggart Chandler scored on a tip-in to start a run. After a Briseno bucket and five points from Lindo in the quarter, the Diamondbacks were back in the game.
Pioneer cut the lead to one late in the second and trailed by just three at 18-15 heading into the locker room.
“We just had to stay level-headed throughout the rest of the second quarter, not let the pressure get to us,” Pioneer’s Luke Padilla said. “Being patient was the key — swing the ball around and get easy buckets.”
Conversions from beyond the 3-point line were a rarity for the 31-5A champion Diamondbacks. Padilla made his team’s only two from downtown on numerous attempts that were highly contested.
Lindo had five of his 12 points in the second quarter, he made two more baskets in the third quarter.
Miller came up big in all the key third-quarter moments. Andrew Body had all six of his points in the frame and strong play from senior Maleek Sanders, who finished with nine, was the ingredients for a 20-9 advantage in the period.
Miller’s momentum, hot shooting and a 12-point lead, along with Pioneer’s turnovers into the fourth were too much for the Diamondbacks to overcome.
Miller, who defeated Corpus Christi Calallen in the bi-district round, closed the game out strong with a raucous crowd behind them. An emphatic dunk by Xavier Callandret in the closing minutes put an exclamation on the win.
Pioneer will graduate three from its 2018-19 roster but will return key juniors and sophomores like Lindo, Padilla and Eddie Lee Marburger, who didn’t play due to injury.
Marburger wasn’t the only starter missing, fellow 10th-grader Miguelangel Gonzalez was unable to compete.
“We’re definitely full of confidence for the next couple of years,” Padilla said. “Even our sophomores on the team, I know we’re missing a couple of them because of injury, which is not what we wanted, but next year we expect big things.”