BY JON R. LaFOLLETTE | STAFF WRITER
WESLACO — The clock kept ticking, much to coach Griselda Fino’s surprise.
Her Weslaco Lady Panthers had the ball and a 29-28 lead over Brownsville Veterans Memorial in the final 40 seconds of Saturday’s Weslaco tournament championship game.
“I told the girls that (Brownsville) was going to go after the basketball,” Fino said. “I said they’d try and foul and put us on the line.”
Fino’s coaching intuition was proved wrong by the Lady Chargers, who never attempted to foul and instead opted for a press defense that never delivered a much-needed takeaway.
“We tried to play defense and stay fundamental,” Brownsville Veterans coach Valentin Paz said. “But we just couldn’t stop the next pass and stay on the ball.”
The game clock continued to run as the Lady Panthers played keep-away until senior guard Angela Villarreal committed an over-and-back violation with 1.1 seconds remaining, turning the ball over to Brownsville Veterans.
“We were looking for a back-cut or a pop-out (3-pointer),” Paz said. “We wanted something close to the basket.”
But the Lady Charger’s never attempted a final shot as Weslaco’s defense forced an awkward pass as time expired.
“Our girls knew what to do out there in that situation,” Fino said.
Weslaco’s tournament championship win means a 5-0 start to being the seaosn. Despite the win, Fino isn’t satisfied.
“I thought we played really awful,” she said. “Shots weren’t falling for us. We were kind of rattled out there. For some reason, we didn’t play very well.”
The Lady Panthers completed just 30 percent of their attempts, going 12-of-40 from the field. Senior guard Angela Villarreal led Weslaco with 10 points on 5-of-15 shooting. Though Villarreal couldn’t get her shots to fall, she still impacted the game with seven boards, three assists and a pair of steals. Villarreal was named tournament MVP.
“She is the best player on the planet, as far as I’m concerned,” Fino said. “She had a horrible game, but I told her it’s a good thing her teammates pulled through.”
One of those teammates was freshman guard Briana Peña, who scored 8 points, including two 3-pointers in the third quarter. Peña was named to the All-Tournament team.
“I told her the growth I saw from her was great,” Fino said. “We’ll be able to do a lot of things with her on the court.”
Weslaco out-rebounded the Lady Chargers by a margin of 24-18, with many of those boards leading to second chance points.
The Lady Chargers were led by sophomore guard Jordan Rudd, who scored 11 points, grabbed nine rebounds and had four assists. Rudd suffered a leg injury after colliding with a Weslaco defender in the fourth quarter, but finished the game.
Brownsville Veterans kept the game close by getting to the line, where they went 9-of-12. Weslaco attempted just six foul shots, making four.
“We’re just so fast.” Fino said. “We’re so aggressive on defense and we want that ball. Sometimes it was over-aggressiveness that got us in trouble, but we’ll fix that. That’s what practice is for.”