MARK MOLINA | STAFF WRITER
The Pace Vikings hit a little bit of a bump in the road last week, dropping games at Brownsville Veterans and at home to Edcouch-Elsa, due in large part to offensive dry spells in big moments.
Pace head coach Jose Luis Ramirez attributed those struggles to the amount of emotion surrounding those games.
“In the (Brownsville Veterans) game, I think it just meant so much with it being a rivalry,” Ramirez said. “Everybody wanted to try and they tried too hard at times and they took a lot of forced shots. Then one forced shot led to another and another. Against Edcouch-Elsa, with the previous loss, the kids weren’t emotionally responsive. They couldn’t bounce back and a lot of that is our youth and a lot of it is that they’re kids. I also have to give a lot of credit to Edcouch-Elsa. Any one of those the top four teams can easily be 8-0 today.”
Pace did get back in the win column Tuesday night and improved to 6-2 in district play with a 53-42 win at Lopez.
In that game, Ramirez said he wanted to go back to basics, meaning taking the green light for three-point shots away from a team that has never hesitated to fire away from beyond the arc in recent years.
Against the Lobos, the Vikings shot 68 percent from inside the arc and shot just seven treys on the night.
Cristian Guajardo led Pace with 14 points and four assists, while Jose Luis Lozoya added 10 points and three assists.
“We did not fire the ball from the outside very much, but that was me,” Ramirez said. “I wanted a different type of game. I wanted to attack the inside and that’s what we did. We weren’t explosive, but we were exploiting what they were giving us and that just meant we had to be a little more patient.”
For the season, the Vikings are shooting 52 percent from inside the arc and 37 percent from down town, averaging 61 points a game.
The Vikings hope to keep on rolling tonight when they hit the road and take on the Donna High Redskins tonight at 7:30 p.m.
CROWDED AT THE TOP
With Pace moving to 6-2, they join a now crowded field at the top of District 32-5A as the Edcouch-Elsa Yellowjackets and Mercedes Tigers also sit at 6-2.
Making things more interesting was the Tigers knocking off the Brownsville Veterans Memorial Chargers 71-51 Tuesday night and dropping them to 7-1 and cutting their lead in the standings to a single game.
While Chargers head coach Larry Gibson was the first to admit his team was simply outplayed by Mercedes, he doesn’t expect the loss to linger or his team’s slim lead atop the standings to go easy.
“We still in first place,” he said. “We won’t panic or anything. I’m not going to give up. We have a good team and we didn’t go 7-0 being bad. We had a bad night and (Mercedes) beat us, but we’ll be back.”
The Chargers host Porter, which isn’t too far behind in the standings at 4-4.
FALCONS HOLD TOUGH
Over in District 32-6A, the Los Fresnos Falcons are holding tough with a 4-0 record in league play after topping Harlingen South 45-43 in another close game.
The Falcons have taken the best shots the rest of the district has had so far.
Aside from a rout of San Benito, their other games were decided by a total of 13 points, including an overtime win at Hanna and a rally at Harlingen High.
With six games to go, Hanna and Harlingen High sit in second place with identical 3-1 records.
Ironically enough, both the Golden Eagles and Cardinals dropped home games to the Falcons.
In the rest of the district, Harlingen South and Rivera both sit at 1-3.
Tonight holds an important slate of games for all the teams as Harlingen High hosts Hanna, Los Fresnos clashes with Rivera and Harlingen South hits the road to face San Benito.