By MARIO AGUIRRE | STAFF WRITER
SAN ANTONIO — Edinburg Vela coach Lalo Rios flirted with the idea of a five-guard lineup to go up against a taller Alamo Heights team on Friday.
But it wasn’t until the SaberCats’ Alec De La Cruz was whistled for his fifth foul — resulting in expulsion — that he committed himself to that approach.
So with six and a half minutes to play in regulation and his team down two, Rios put enough speed on the court to force steals, push the pace and eventually force overtime. In the extra session, Vela smothered Alamo Heights, and Edinburg Vela secured its ticket to the Region IV-5A finals with a 68-60 victory at the Blossom Athletic Center.
“That’s what I say about these kids: they’re tough,” Rios said. “They’re winners. They know what it takes to win. If there’s time on the clock, there’s still an opportunity.”
Days after facing one of the more athletic teams it has seen all year, Edinburg Vela (34-2) squared off against the tallest group it has faced. With nine 6-footers, Alamo Heights (23-10) had a distinct advantage over Edinburg Vela, which has just three players around the height.
Losing De La Cruz, a 6-foot-2 junior who guarded the opposing team’s best player, seemed like a crushing blow at the time, until Vela went small and pestered the Mules on the defensive end. It sparked a 16-10 fourth-quarter run to tie the game at 60. And then in overtime, Vela scored eight unanswered points to advance to today’s regional finals against Laredo Nixon, which beat LBJ Austin 70-69.
Tip-off is at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Blossom Athletic Center.
“It feels like a dream come true,” Vela’s Ryan Garza said after pouring in a game-high 29 points. “This is what you’ve been working for. This is what I’ve been working for. It’s a dream come true to do something not many Valley teams have done.”
Though De La Cruz, a member of Vela’s “Big 3,” was scoreless Friday, his primary assignment was guarding Jhonathan Dunn, the Mules’ leading scorer. The 6-foot-4 Dunn was brilliant on both ends of the court, finishing with 26 points and doing his part to contain Garza and Hector Ruiz (15 points).
But once De La Cruz fouled out, the SaberCats went small, and Dunn scored only four points the rest of the way, as Ruiz buried a 3-pointer to push Vela up 56-53 with 3:24 left in in the quarter.
“We started pressing and some getting turnovers,” the SaberCats’ Mike Garcia said. “We just worked as a team, and our speed came through.”
Garcia drained two free throws to tie it with 3.7 seconds left in regulation, and in overtime they made 4 of 8 attempts to pull ahead.
Returning to the site where it was ousted from the postseason a year ago, Edinburg Vela made program history by advancing to the regional finals for the first time since the school opened in 2012.
It was a big win for the team, which is one of only two Valley programs alive in the postseason. Santa Rosa did its part Friday by beating Goliad 73-69.
It was Santa Rosa, in fact, that was the last Valley team to win regionals back in 2009. With a victory today, Edinburg Vela, ranked No. 8 in the state by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches, can reach that same milestone, as well.
“This is huge for this program,” Garza said. “We came to represent the Valley teams, and do something that not many of them have done. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come, but we’re not done yet.”