SAN BENITO — There may be no better sports rivalry in the Valley than the one that exists between the San Benito Greyhounds and the Harlingen Cardinals.
Harlingen had defeated San Benito earlier in the district season, which gave the Greyhounds more incentive to defend their home court against the Cardinals in their grudge match on Tuesday.
“Anytime we play against Harlingen, it’s always a competitive game but athletes always want to compete no matter the circumstances,” said Greyhounds head coach Edward Abrego.
“Harlingen has some big players, so we made it more of an emphasis in this game to match up against their guys in crashing the boards.”
Needless to say, San Benito got their revenge by defeating Harlingen 61-58 on in their last matchup of the District 32-6A season.
San Benito’s Nick Lucio lead the Greyhounds in scoring with 15 points and teammate Ryan Reza finished right behind him with 14 points, four rebounds and one block as well.
Lucio and Reza also had the tough task of matching up against the premiere players at Harlingen in point guard Michael Arellano and power forward Matthew Sesler.
“Coach Abrego wanted me to lock up on No. 5 (Arellano) the whole game, so I was all over the place trying to guard him,” said Lucio “But it feels good to get the win against Harlingen and do it in front of our home crowd.”
Coach Abrego praised Lucio for his efforts.
“Nick is our returning second-team all-district player and we’ve worked with him in touching up his game, but he definitely rose up to the challenge today,” said Abrego.
Other notable contributors to the Greyhounds’ victory were Jacob Sauceda, who scored 12 points, and David Sanchez, who pitched in 10 points.
“We have a young team that is mainly dominated by juniors, but our guys are learning to come together as a unit” Abrego said.