HARLINGEN — For the Harlingen Cardinals boys basketball team, Tuesday night was a good first step for the 2015-16 season.
The Cardinals played smothering defense and their offense was clicking as they ran past the PSJA Southwest Javelinas for a 75-37 season-opening win.
Harlingen moved the ball well, scored in the paint and from the perimeter as five players scored in double digits.
“I thought we did a good job passing the ball around and hit the perimeter shots,” Harlingen head coach Greg Yates said. “We did get it inside and then Juan (Cerrillo) went to work and Elijah (Rhodes) started to hit shots.”
Early on, Harlingen owned the paint as Cerrillo and Matthew Sesler scored a combined 12 points and shot seven free throws in the first quarter. Both finished with 11 points a piece.
Fellow returning letterman Elijah Rhodes and Ernie Ramirez each had solid nights from the field. Rhodes led the Cards with 16 points, while Ramirez added 10.
Yates was pleased with the full team effort, but wants to see improvements in certain areas.
“Ernie, Elijah, Juan and Eric (Ramirez) are returning from last year,” Yates said. “People ask how the team is doing, but I tell them that we’ll see what we have. We have to work on blocking out and making free throws.
“Those are things we can get better at, but I’m pleased with the effort that they gave.”
The Cards struggled from the free-throw line, making just 13 of 31 attempts. However, it didn’t hurt them against the Javelinas.
Leading 5-4, the Cards went on a 12-0 run and never looked back. They led by as many as 42 at one point in the third quarter.
Harlingen never led by less than 37 points the entire game as the bench kept the pressure on late and threw the Javelinas different defensive looks late.
“Our team is pretty aggressive; we like to full court press,” Yates said. “We did get out of it, working our half court, quarter court and zone. We wanted to see if the kids can stay sharp mentally; they did a good job doing that.”