FREDDY GONZALEZ | Staff Writer
HARLINGEN — A capacity crowd was on hand Monday night as two of the Valley’s best girls teams collided at the Harlingen High gymnasium.
With a spot in the Region IV-6A tournament up for grabs, the Weslaco Lady Panthers rallied from an early deficit to defeat the state-ranked Lady Cardinals 56-46, snapping Harlingen’s 24-game win streak and ending their season at 34-2.
The Lady Panthers’ win avenged a 65-41 non-district loss to the Lady Cardinals earlier in the season and earned them a trip to San Antonio this weekend where they will face either Converse Judson or San Antonio Wagner in the regional semifinals.
“In the first game here, we got humiliated and we vowed that that wasn’t going to happen again, but the biggest thing that I can give credit to is obviously the kids because they got in the gym every single day and worked, worked, and worked,” said Weslaco head coach Griselda Fino.
“When I talked to them today. I told them, ‘One thing you have to believe is that all the work that you put in is going to pay off and we are such a better team than we were in November.’”
“I felt that there was some parts of their (Harlingen) game that we could expose and we did, but all the credit goes to the kids that went out and executed the game plan almost to perfection.”
Harlingen took an early 9-3 lead after Sami Quilantan, Nadia Flores and Ariel Leal responded to an early three pointer from Weslaco’s Evany Nicholson. However, Nicholson scored back-to-back buckets before Emily Saenz nailed one of her four three pointers on the night, as the Lady Panthers took an 11-9 first-quarter lead.
Early in the second quarter, Harlingen struggled to capitalize on easy layups, while Saenz began to heat up for Weslaco. Saenz would score seven of her team-high 18 points in the second period and give the Lady Panthers a 24-17 lead going into the half.
With a seven-point lead in the third quarter, Weslaco lost its first offensive battle and was outscored 9-8. However, despite only scoring eight points, the Lady Panthers did go 3 of 9 from the free-throw line to stay close. Harlingen, on the other hand, went 1 of 6 from the charity stripe, with Quilantan scoring eight of her team-high 15 points in the period.
Down by six to start the final quarter, Harlingen’s Marissa Gasca went to work and quickly converted seven points as Harlingen went on a 7-3 run and cut Weslaco’s lead to 35-33 with just under six minutes to go in the game. Quilantan finished the game with 15 points, Gasca contributed 14 and freshman Leal had seven.
“When they did get within two is was because our point guard (Brianna Pena) was sitting with four fouls,” said Fino. “I’ve always said, I put a lot of pressure on our point guards and this year’s been no different. As she goes we go. With her on the bench we were stagnant, but once she got in there I thought it was beautiful.
“We worked on that press break over and over, and I know we had some lapses but when it came down to the stretch they did what they needed to do.”
With the lead down to two points, Harlingen failed to capitalize on turnovers and the Lady Panthers’ Gabriella Garza and Pena quickly built the lead back to five before Amy Garza pushed the lead to 11 at 47-36 by scoring six unanswered points with just under three minutes left in the game.
Nicholson finished with 17 points, Pena had eight and Amy Garza finished the night with seven.
Meanwhile for the Lady Cards, this will be a tough loss for them to swallow as the senior-laden squad was primed to return to the regional tournament for the first time since 2013.
Their only loss of the regular season came against San Antonio Clark on Nov. 21.