By MARK MOLINA | STAFF WRITER
LYFORD — While some teams take a bit to shake the doldrums of the holiday season, the Santa Maria Lady Cougars took mere minutes before kicking it into gear at the Holiday Classic Lyford Basketball Tournament.
Yazmin Cantu scored 18 points and Michelle Almazon followed with 10 as the Lady Cougars rolled to a 45-22 opening–round victory over the IDEA Frontier Lady Chargers on Friday morning at Lyford High School.
After the Lady Cougars erased an early five-point deficit in first quarter, Cantu looked dominant in the in the paint with eight straight points, while the defense allowed just one Lady Chargers field goal in the second quarter, setting the tone for the rest of the game.
“We noticed our defensive intensity picked up in the latter part of the game,” Santa Maria head coach Albert Briones said. “That was a big difference. Our girls began to figure out (Frontier’s) press offense and it allowed us to get easy opportunities on the other end. (Cantu) got active and that’s what we needed — more touches. Once she did, it helped. Frontier played a 2-3 matchup and we spread it out, put her in the middle and she started taking it to the rack.”
Frontier got a couple of early buckets from Judy Arujao, including an early 3-pointer to help open a 7-2 lead, but managed just five makes from the field from that point on as Santa Maria’s press stifled the younger Lady Chargers.
“We started off awesome, but the little things killed us like the passing,” Frontier coach Victor Leija said. “Santa Maria played a really good defensive game and we panicked a little with our passing. We have a young team right now and coming off the Christmas holiday, you could see our sloppiness.”
Port Isabel, led by first-year head coach Kyle DeMoss defeated IDEA Donna 44-30, behind 14 points from Whitney Zaloski and eight points from Janessa Espinosa.
“The girls came out and played really hard,” DeMoss said. “For a 9 a.m. game, you never know what you’re going to get out of the girls, especially on Christmas break. We came out with a lot of energy and got a lot of steals. We played a good first quarter and it carried the rest of the game.”
Port Isabel would finish the day 1-1 after falling to Santa Maria 58-30 in the semifinals.
The Lady Cougars were once again led by Cantu, who scored 16 of her game-high 20 points in the first quarter, while Almazon added 15 and Byanca Cantu netted 11.
Santa Maria will meet the host Lyford Lady Bulldogs in the tournament championship.
Lyford breezed through its first two games. In the opener, the Lady Bulldogs trounced IDEA Alamo 61-24 behind 18 points from Kayleen May and 15 points from Sam Delgado and then ran over Kingsville King 62-33.
Tipoff for the Championship game is set for 4:30 p.m. in the Memorial gym, but not before both teams play guaranteed games.
Santa Maria will take on Kingsville King at 9 a.m. and Lyford faces Port Isabel at 10:30 a.m., with both games held at the Memorial gym.