By MARK MOLINA | Staff Writer
While the Edinburg High Bobcats did what they could to hang around, the Los Fresnos Falcons’ defense made doing so a difficult task.
Eventually the defensive pressure became too much for the Bobcats, and the Falcons imposed their will on offense as they cruised to a 62-45 win in a Class 6A bi-district playoff game Tuesday night in Los Fresnos.
The Falcons (26-8) will move on to the area round to take on Laredo Nixon, and the Bobcats end their season at 19-14.
Los Fresnos held Edinburg High to 15 points during the first half, and the offense steadily built a double-digit lead by the mid-second quarter and never looked back.
“We’ve been doing a great job defensively,” Los Fresnos coach Marco Hinojosa said. “We’ve allowed somewhere around 45 points a game. That’s what Edinburg scored, and that’s one of our goals. We worked on defense and preached defense all week. We were just lucky to get some stops.”
The Falcons had four players score in double digits, led by a game-high 18 points and four 3-pointers from senior guard Tyler Alvarez. Junior Ricky Altamirano followed with 14, and Sebastian Szpak and Antonio Aldrighetti had 10 each.
“The team was very unselfish and, any given night, anyone can lead the team in scoring,” Hinojosa said. “We don’t have one superstar like we did in the past. It’s team basketball and, like I said before, they’re very unselfish. They do a good job of moving the ball, moving bodies and finding the guy that’s hot. They did that tonight and hit some shots.”
Edinburg High struggled from the field during the first half, hitting just five times, with three coming behind the arc. That long ball and the ability to finally put in tough layups in the third quarter allowed the Bobcats to stay within 11 points heading to the fourth, but they did not find enough to put together a run.
“They did a great job at contesting our long shots and made it difficult to get open looks,” Edinburg High coach Zeke Cuellar said. “I thought we had some good spurts on defense early on, but we fell behind. We couldn’t find that run. When we tried to there was a whistle here, a whistle there. It held us back a little.”
Edinburg High’s John Carranco, who had just two points and no field goals during the first half, led his team with 11 points. Jerry Lopez and Ricky Alaniz each sank a pair of treys and finished with 10 points apiece for the Bobcats.
Neither team shot the lights out early, but Los Fresnos got out to a 9-3 lead after an Alvarez trey with 2:04 left in the first quarter and led by nine early in the second quarter.
After an Alaniz 3 cut it to an 18-12 lead, Alvarez hit a 3 of his own, followed by an Altamirano layup to give Los Fresnos a 23-12 edge and spark a 10-3 run during the final 4:06 of the first half.
It was that kind of night for the Bobcats, who couldn’t sustain momentum throughout the night.
“We were just expecting a better offense scenario,” Cuellar said. “We didn’t get what we were running. Some of what we run, Los Fresnos took away from us. I’m sure they did a good job of scouting us and watching film. They saw what we like to do and they took that away from us, and it made it difficult for us to execute any type of offense.”
The Falcons led 28-15 at the half and pushed the lead to 37-22 with 3:18 to go in the third on an Altamirano layup.
An Alaniz bucket and a Jerry Lopez 3 helped the Bobcats move within 11 after three quarters, but Los Fresnos opened the final quarter on an 11-0 run to put the game out of reach. Alvarez and Altamirano combined for 14 points during the final quarter.