By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
LOS FRESNOS — There was much to be gained by winning Tuesday’s District 32-6A boys basketball game between Los Fresnos and Harlingen High.
Coming off losses in their district openers, neither the Falcons nor the Cardinals wanted to fall to 0-2 in district play.
Thanks in large part to Elijah Rhodes’ 28 points, the Cardinals (15-5, 1-1 district) made sure that didn’t happen by outscoring the Falcons 20-11 during the opening quarter, building a comfortable cushion and never relinquishing the lead the rest of the way en route to a 68-51 victory at the Falcons’ gym.
Rhodes scored 10 of his 28 points during the opening period, including both of his 3-pointers in the game.
“There’s no doubt (we needed this win),” Cardinals coach Greg Yates said. “It’s only the second district game, and I hate to call anything (like this) a must-win situation, but it was nice to get out to a fast start. Our defensive intensity was there, we got some rebounds and getting out to our fast start (were all things that helped us get the win).
“We went to a little bigger lineup, and that helped us also initially,” Yates added. “Elijah Rhodes, you saw what he can do. He can play inside and outside. He’s a versatile player, and he definitely had a strong game tonight. It looks like we had some other good performances as well.
“We came out hot, and that’s what helped us. We decided to pick up the tempo of our defense a lot more than our previous game to see if that would kind of get us energized, and evidently it did.”
Los Fresnos coach Marco Hinojosa said the contest basically was decided in the opening quarter.
“We dug ourselves a big hole and that was it,” Hinojosa said. “They put it to us early on, and our players never recovered.
“We dug ourselves a hole (at 0-2) in our district standings, and now we just have to regroup,” added Hinojosa, whose team is 11-9 overall. “It is what it is. We’ve got two rounds (of district competition), so we’ve just got figure things out, try to win one game at a time and get back in the winning column.”
During their district openers Saturday, Harlingen High lost 59-42 at San Benito, and Los Fresnos was edged by Harlingen South 58-51.
On Tuesday, the Cardinals led 41-29 at halftime and took a 56-40 advantage into the final quarter. Their biggest lead of 19 points, 35-16, came at the 3:45 mark of the second period when Marc Nieto scored on a drive.
Los Fresnos cut the lead to nine points twice early in the second half, but that’s as close as the Falcons got.
Guards Hugo De La Cruz and Alex Garcia led Los Fresnos with 16 points apiece. Each hit a pair of 3-pointers.
In addition to Rhodes being on fire for the Cardinals with 28 points, teammate Juan Cerrillo added 12 points.