By MARIO AGUIRRE | STAFF WRITER
EDINBURG — As Brownsville Veterans Memorial cut into a double-digit deficit Tuesday night, Edinburg Vela dumped the ball into the hands of Hector Ruiz.
The senior caught the ball on the left block, and turned to face Jeremiah Meyers, who had four fouls — one away from expulsion. Ruiz warned his defender, and Meyers responded by raising four fingers to his face. The Edinburg Vela swingman proceeded to back down Meyers before burying a 15-foot fadeaway that sent the crowd into a frenzy during a 67-61 win.
The sequence of events helped make an otherwise mundane non-district game interesting, after the SaberCats nearly squandered their lead.
“I just kind of fed off of it. I got pumped up,” Ruiz said. “He said I was weak and soft, and I told him, ‘You have four fouls,’ and he said, ‘It’s four,’ but OK.”
Ruiz admitted that “the hype kind of caught up to me,” but he proceeded with the isolation play in an effort to bait Meyers into foul trouble. Moments later, Edinburg Vela took a charge on Meyers, and Brownsville Veterans lost one of their leading scorers and better defenders for the remainder of the game.
Ruiz had 17 points up to that moment, when he drained the shot over Meyers, and he went on to finish with a game-high 22, including three 3-pointers.
“What I saw from him was great poise and leadership, saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to put the team on my back,’ and he willed us to victory,” Vela coach Lalo Rios said. “Fortunately for us, guys had foul trouble, and Hector understood what we were trying to get him to do. We weren’t trying to go one-on-one, but we were trying to get them in tough position to play defense.”
The SaberCats (6-1) were coming off a weekend tournament in which they lost the opening game to San Antonio Roosevelt before ripping off three straight wins. Rios said he wasn’t sure if his team was fatigued or relaxing after allowing a 20-point lead to shrink to single digits on Tuesday.
Still, he said he was pleased that they were able to play well for the majority of the game nonetheless, despite a pesky Brownsville Veterans attack during the second half.
Edinburg Vela entered the week ranked No. 24 by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches for Class 5A teams, while Brownsville Veterans (6-1) was ranked No. 25 in Class 6A. It didn’t take long for the SaberCats to create separation, though, as they raced out to an 11-1 lead and built a 30-11 cushion going into the second quarter.
Meyers, who scored 5 points during the first, was relegated to the bench during the opening half due to foul trouble. And by the time he re-entered the game to start the second half, Edinburg Vela was sitting on a 41-24 lead.
“It affected us quite a bit because he’s our best penetrator. He makes stuff happen,” Brownsville Veterans coach Larry Gibson said. “When we had to take him out that really took a lot from our team.”