FREDDY GONZALEZ | Staff Writer
HARLINGEN — Luke Bradford and the Harlingen South Hawks survived a late scare from the Donna Redskins to win 50-39 Tuesday evening at the South gymnasium.
Bradford scored 15 points, Aaron Briones had 10 and Noah Perez contributed eight on a night where the lead switched hands only twice, both in South’s favor.
“It wasn’t a pretty game but it was a win,” said Harlingen South head basketball coach Brian Molina. “Anytime you can beat a good team like Donna, we’ll take it.
“Credit to them, they did a really good job defensively and put us in some bad situations. But I’m glad we finished on top at the end of the day.”
With under a minute left in the third quarter, and down by five, Redskins freshman Marc Figueroa (Figueroa finished the game with a team high 13 points) hit a mid-range jumper and cut the Hawks’ lead to 33-30.
Donna outscored South 16-13 in the quarter, after scoring just five points in the second period.
With 6:36 remaining in the fourth, Figueroa once again stepped up to the line and buried two crucial free throws, bringing the Redskins to with one point at 33-32.
However, with pressure mounting on the Hawks’ bench, Briones got going and didn’t stop.
Briones scored 10 of the team’s 17 points in the fourth.
“Aaron did a good job of attacking the basket,” said Molina. “I told the guys to be patient and move the ball around. After we moved the ball around two or three times, then we can look to see if we can break them down to the basket. And Aaron did a job of doing that for us.”
Defensively, Harlingen South held Donna to nine points in the final minutes of the game. The Hawks outscored the Redskins 17-9 to finish the game with an 11-point lead.
“We are finishing games and I’m proud of that,” said Molina. “We’re scheduling teams that are playoff-type teams for a reason and at this point we just need a couple of wins to get that confidence going heading into district.”
The Hawks travel to Pharr for the Tri-City Classic Tournament this weekend before beginning the district schedule on the road against the Los Fresnos Falcons on Jan 2.