By EDWARD SEVERN, Staff Writer
HARLINGEN — The place to be Friday night was Harlingen High to watch the Lady Cardinals play host to the Harlingen South Lady Hawks in a District 32-6A matchup.
Both teams put on a show for the crowd. The Lady Cardinals were victorious at the end 43-33, but the Lady Hawks made their crosstown rivals work for the victory.
“I always love when we come out here in front of the community, when we are able to give them a great game, two Harlingen schools together, it shows how competitive we are here in the district,” Lady Cardinals coach Ashley Moncivaiz said.
The Lady Cardinals pounced early with an 18-0 run to begin the game. Senior Avery Hinojosa got going with a couple of layups and a 3. Junior Danielle Rodriguez hit from deep, too. Juniors Juli Bryant and Athena Linnartz added a couple of buckets, and the Lady Cardinals’ crowd roared with every made basket.
South started to chip away with some big shots and nice play from senior Alexes Rocha. The guard/wing got to the rim and played the pick and roll nice with teammates. The bank was open downtown for senior Sarahi Rodriguez, and the Lady Hawks only trailed 26-19 at the half.
The Lady Cards got a couple of nice buckets out of the break to go up 31-19.
South again fought back, this time with Isabella Marez. The senior got to the rim with a nice euro-step on one possession, and on the next got back to the rim for the old-fashioned three-point play, cutting the lead to 31-28.
“The first quarter we struggled and it cost us the game, but I am proud of their effort, coming back and competing,” South coach Rebecca Littleton said. “We’ve got some stuff to fix to get them next time, but I think we will be better next time we play them.”
The Lady Cards were not getting the rolls and missed a few free throws during the Lady Hawks’ run, but got some shots to go late in the game.
With the score 35-33, junior Layla Salas drove and finished well to go back up by four. Good defense, some Salas free throws and a basket from Linnartz with one minute left helped see out the win for the Lady Cards.
“The game got physical and they got aggressive, we started to not be aggressive, and in the last couple of minutes we started to attack the basketball more,” Moncivaiz said. “We feel good, we can always improve. We look at what we did in the first half of district games and look where we need to improve for the second.”