MARK MOLINA | Staff Writer
SANTA ROSA — The first half was not a pretty one for the Brownsville IDEA Frontier Chargers or the Santa Rosa Warriors, as both struggled to gain and sustain momentum.
A single point separated the two at the half.
Coming out of the break, however, the Warriors shook off the slow first-half start and mounted a third-quarter run that ultimately lifted them to a 59-41 District 32-3A victory over the visiting Chargers on Tuesday night in Santa Rosa.
The Warriors led 28-27 with 4:29 remaining in the third quarter before going on a 13-3 run to end the period.
Santa Rosa coach Johnny Cipriano said he didn’t give much halftime advice to his players, aside from preaching patience.
“I think we were rushing our shots and trying to put (Frontier) away too early,” the Warriors’ coach said. “I just told them ‘Hey, you’re wide open in the corner; it’s a shooting drill. Take your time and shoot the ball.’ We were executing defensively, we just weren’t scoring offensively.”
While Santa Rosa began to turn it on from the offensive end, the defense began to force Frontier turnovers, allowing fastbreak looks for the Warriors.
From that point on, digging out of a 14-point hole proved to be too much for the Chargers
“Santa Rosa came out in the third quarter and got a good lead on us,” Frontier coach Jerry De La Garza said “We exerted a lot of energy trying to come back. That affected us in the third and the fourth quarter. Hats off to Santa Rosa, they played a great game. I feel like our boys played a great game. Sometimes shots don’t fall in and we struggled to get our set plays to work, but it lets us know what to work on in practice tomorrow.”
The win gives the Warriors a 14-0 district record at least a share of the district crown for the 15th consecutive season. Frontier falls to 12-2.
Leading Santa Rosa on the night was CJ Olivarez with a game-high 19 points, followed by David Bazaldua with 12 and Mike Bermea with 10.
Frontier’s Tyrese Arellano led the Chargers with 15 points, and Gustavo Recio sank a trio of 3-point shots and added 11.
Early on, Arellano had success against the Warriors, scoring six points during the first quarter and helping the Chargers to an early 10-7 lead.
Arellano scored just nine points during the next three quarters as the Warriors’ defense began to zero in on the Chargers guard after the fast start.
“Defensively, we executed what we wanted,” Cipriano said. “We took, for the most part, their main players away. We knew who their scorers were, and we tried to take them away and make the other guys beat us. Fortunately, tonight, it went our way. They still made some forced shots, which we can’t do anything about, but we executed.”
Trailing by two later in the second quarter, a basket by Arellano and a Recio trey on back-to-back possessions gave the Chargers an 18-15 lead and forced the third lead change of the half.
The Warriors answered with a pair of back-to-back scores of their own from Daniel Villarreal and Balzaldua that forced the fourth and final lead change.
The Warriors went into the half leading 24-23 before making their move in the third quarter.
The Warriors made just three shots from the field during the fourth quarter but went 10 of 14 from the free-throw line.
Ten of those freebies were taken by Olivarez, who was 8 for 10 from the stripe in the fourth quarter alone.
“Santa Rosa adjusted well,” De La Garza said. “They played a great defensive game. I feel we could have done some things a little bit better. Overall, it’s basketball. Sometimes shots go in and sometimes they don’t; you can’t always win every game.”