HARLINGEN — The Harlingen Lady Cardinals are going to go as far as senior Nadia Flores takes them this season and judging by her performances in her first two district games they are in good hands.
After scoring 14 points Tuesday night against Harlingen South, Flores followed it up with a dominating 26-point performance that hand delivered the Lady Cardinals their second win of the District 32-6A season with a 76-50 win over the Brownsville Rivera Lady Raiders on Friday evening.
Flores shot 71 percent from outside the three-point line sinking 5 of 7 attempts. Defensively, Flores’ performance didn’t slow down one bit as she recording four steals and three blocked shots on the evening.
“I keep telling her that when she plays a complete game where they move the ball and she moves through the open areas she scores and she’s set,” said Harlingen head coach Ashley Moncivaiz. “Sometimes she ties too hard and tries to do too much, doing it one against five and she is not effective. She’s more effective when she works to the game plan.”
The Lady Cardinals didn’t waste any time getting their game plan in motion going on a 14-point run early in the first quarter and pushing their lead to 23-6. Harlingen finished the first period up 27-8.
In the second period, the Lady Cardinals continued to dominate and when Flores hit her third three of the contest late in the period, Harlingen went up 42-22 at the half.
Other Lady Cardinals with impressive evenings were Alyssa Cervantes, who added 10 points on 44 percent shooting from the floor with four steals, and Aileen Valdez, who contributed nine points on 57 percent shooting with six rebounds.
Despite the impressive performance, Moncivaiz saw some areas where the team could improve.
“I liked how we were moving the ball on offense,” said Moncivaiz, “but on the defensive end I think we still need to work on maintaining our defensive pressure and not allowing people to attack the basket like we did and let them score.”
Next up, Harlingen travels to Weslaco High to take on the Panthers, who are also 2-0 in league play.
