By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
Looking very much like a favorite in the District 32-5A girls basketball race, Brownsville Veterans Memorial opened conference play Tuesday with a 54-20 victory at Pace.
The Lady Chargers, now 15-4 overall, did nothing to diminish their reputation as one of the top teams to beat in 32-5A this season.
It was the district opener for each of the ballclubs, both playoff qualifiers last season.
After spotting Pace a 2-0 lead, the Lady Chargers surged to a 14-8 advantage by the end of the first quarter and were up 30-8 at halftime after outscoring the Lady Vikings 16-0 during the second period. Brownsville Veterans took a 46-14 lead into the final quarter before winning by 34 points.
The Lady Chargers’ largest lead of 37 points, 51-14, came when Hannah Meyers scored on a drive with 4:20 remaining.
It was definitely a strong showing.
“We’ll let other people talk about that, and we’ll just do the work and play,” Brownsville Veterans coach Valentin Paz said when asked if his squad is the favorite in the 32-5A race. “One down, 13 more (32-5A games) to go. We have to work harder to get better.”
After sitting out some of the first half due to foul trouble, Meyers enjoyed quite a productive final two quarters offensively to lead her team in scoring with a game-high 20 points.
Teammates Jordan Rudd and Ares Muzquiz added 13 and 12 points, respectively. Continuing to be an accurate shooter from the outside, Muzquiz again hit four 3-pointers. Rudd had one 3-pointer.
For Pace, Kaylynn Quezada was the top scorer with eight points. Six other players scored two points apiece for the Lady Vikings, now 7-10 on the season.
“That’s a good team over there,” said Pace coach Eddie Lozano, referring to the Lady Chargers. “I haven’t seen all the teams yet, so I can’t say they’re the best team in our district, but they’re pretty good.
“A game like this shows us what we need to work on,” Lozano added. “We’ll get better.”
Paz said he was happy to see his squad start off district with such a solid effort.
“We wanted to come out and make a statement, and I think we did, particularly on defense,” he said. “I think we rushed a lot of things (offensively), so we still have a lot of work to do. But it’s good that we’ve got room to grow. We’ve just got to keep working hard and correct some things.
“(As a team,) we commended Hannah for staying focused after getting into foul trouble,” Paz added. “She sat out almost the entire second quarter. Then she came back and scored like 16 of her points in the second half. We talk about playing in the moment, forgetting about what has already happened, and she did. She had a great game. The whole team commended her for staying focused.”
District 32-5A competition continues at 7:30 p.m. Friday as Brownsville Veterans is at home against Mercedes and Pace visits Porter.