By MARIO AGUIRRE | STAFF WRITER
EDINBURG — The moment Edinburg Vela lost in the Region IV-5A semifinal last year, coach Lalo Rios began brainstorming goals for the 2015-16 season.
On a sheet the size of an index card, Rios compiled a list of his aspirations for this year’s team. He told players to hang it in their lockers, and for the coaching staff to post it above their workstation, to serve as a daily reminder.
More than a year later, the SaberCats have taken great joy in accomplishing virtually everything of note on that list.
“We knew with all those guys coming back that this was going to be a special year,” Rios said. “The pressure was on us to do it, to do what people expected. There was more of a sense of urgency to go out there every single night and do what we expected of them to do, and they did.”
With 11 seniors, the SaberCats felt added incentive to realize the potential that had followed them since their middle school days. They won more 31 games, two tournament titles, a district crown outright, and came away with the No. 1 ranking in the Valley rankings, as they set out to do.
What followed on the list, numbered 6 through 9, were round-by-round victories in the playoffs leading up to the state tournament. Then, the novelty goal: averaging 100 points per game.
That the SaberCats (35-2) didn’t accomplish that is of little note now. As is the other item that never came to fruition: “undefeated in the Valley.”
As Edinburg Vela, the No. 8 ranked team by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches, prepares to take on No. 3 Lancaster (34-2) in the UIL state semifinal at 7 p.m. today at the Alamodome in San Antonio, players looked back on their lone Valley loss — to McAllen Rowe — as a turning point in the season.
It humbled an Edinburg Vela team that had only one loss leading up to that point, stemming from a tournament battle against a Houston-area school. The SaberCats responded by winning three straight games that weekend.
Vela has taken pride in bouncing back from tough losses. It did it this season after losing to Rowe, winning 17 games in a row heading into the state tournament. It did it on a large scale, as well, during the 2013-14 campaign, making the playoffs after falling short in their inaugural season.
Alec De La Cruz joined the team that year, and quickly picked up on the mood surrounding the team.
“They were very heartbroken not making the playoffs,” De La Cruz said. “But they knew it was a learning experience and that with time we’d get better and go pretty far.”
Rios, too, chalked it up as part of the process. At Edinburg Economedes, he made the playoffs three times in 12 years since the school opened, including once as a head coach his final six seasons. But at Vela, Rios balanced his patience with a sense of urgency.
“We told them there was no excuse,” Rios said. “We have to win.”
That year marked the beginning of the SaberCats’ playoff streak, three years and counting, including two Sweet 16 appearances. Now, as Vela rolls out its first four-year class at the state tournament, the players are enjoying what’s left of their time together.
“The coaching staff really harped on guys,” assistant Nicholas Lopez said. “Yes, it was a learning experience, but we said, ‘Let’s use this as fuel for next year.’ So every time we broke in the offseason that year, it was ‘playoffs!’ And then third year it continued to ‘regionals!’ We said let’s improve. Let’s not stop. So we started breaking for ‘state!’ (even after the regional semifinal loss).
“It was just a matter of focusing on state from that point on, and getting guys to believe.”