BY JON R. LaFOLLETTE | STAFF WRITER
EDINBURG — McAllen Memorial’s 62-55 win over Edinburg Vela on Tuesday was many things: sloppy, spirited, enthralling. What it was not, was pretty. Just ask Ebony Johnson.
The 6-foot-1 junior post scored a game-high 24 points and grabbed 14 rebounds for the Lady Mustangs at Edinburg Vela High School, doing so with her left index finger wrapped in powder blue tape for the bulk of the game. The ailment was a broken manicured nail suffered during the early part of the first quarter while fighting for a loose ball.
“My nails never break,” Johnson said. “It’s never been a thing until tonight. It hurt so bad. It was bleeding and everything. I had to wash it off on the sideline.”
Despite the busted appendage, Johnson was the lone constant for both teams during a game that featured its share of turnovers and foul calls. She scored in every quarter, including nine points in the second and five during the fourth to help put the game away.
“She does a really good job of penetrating, and if you give her space, she’s going to take it all the way to the rack,” Memorial coach Clarisse Arredondo said. “We really didn’t ask for her to post up and pound inside. It was more attacking the basket. Stop shooting and get into the lane.”
Vela matched size of Johnson with the speedy guard play and resourceful post performances. Though the Lady Mustangs (9-6) sport an athletic backcourt in Victoria Izaguirre and Tani Talamantez, they were outplayed by Vela’s Julissa Cuellar and Cynthia Hernandez for the first three quarters.
While Talamantez went scoreless and Izaguirre sat on the bench with three first-half fouls, Cuellar and Hernandez led the Lady SaberCats’ transition attack to give Vela a 23-22 halftime lead.
The two teams played to a draw during the third quarter with the score at 48. Vela’s Bianca Cortez scored six of her 10 points in that time. Tuesday marked Cortez’s first start since suffering an ankle sprain in the team’s third game.
“She played well for us,” Vela coach Lottie Zarate said. “She played for us last game, but she only got spot minutes. She’s still trying to get her feet back under her and know that she can make her cuts or play at the level she’s accustomed to playing at.”
During the final eight minutes, the scrappiness of Vela (7-12) gave way to error-prone basketball. Cortez fouled out as the team’s turnovers mounted, stalling the Lady SaberCats’ uptempo ways.
While Vela ran out of steam, Memorial’s Izaguirre demonstrated her potency, scoring nine of her 15 points in the final quarter, finishing strong in the paint and making three of her four attempts from the foul line. She did not commit a foul during the second half.
“(The officials) called hip-checks a lot,” Izaguirre said. “That’s something I struggled at last year. I just kept my head in the game and tried to keep my hands up as much as I could.”
Thanks in part to Izaguirre, Memorial outscored Vela 9-2 during the final three minutes.
With district play beginning next week, Arredondo says she wants to see a refocused defensive effort from her team. Zarate would be happy to have all hands on deck. The Lady SaberCats are still missing guard Jaida Muhammad, who suffered a high ankle sprain in November and is likely two weeks away from a return.
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