The Brownsville St. Joseph community had a lot to celebrate Tuesday at Memorial Gym.
SJA’s girls and boys basketball teams both won their area playoff games to advance to the TAPPS Class 5A Sweet 16. The Lady Bloodhounds got the afternoon started with a 52-38 victory over Fort Bend Christian Academy-Sugar Land. Lucia Gonzalez led SJA with a 19-point performance and tireless defense as she raced straight into Round 3.
“It feels amazing. We haven’t done this in a while, so it’s been a good year for the seniors,” Gonzalez said. “We all hustled at the end, and we kept our head in the game. I just kept on telling them to stay motivated and keep on hustling, and give it their all because it could be our last game. But it’s not, and it feels amazing to be area champs.”
The Lady Bloodhounds waited to play this game for almost two weeks. They clinched the district championship Feb. 10 and received a first-round bye, and then the winter weather pushed back the start of playoffs. SJA coach Robert Moreno felt his girls had a slow start because of the extended time between contests, even though the Lady Bloodhounds held a 27-17 lead at halftime.
The first quarter was tight, then the Lady Bloodhounds pulled away midway through the second. Narda Serna played well in the paint to slow down the bigger Lady Eagles and keep them off the scoreboard when FBCA fed the ball inside.
“That’s one thing we talked about at the beginning, their intensity down there was big. I told (Serna), ‘As long as you match their intensity down there you’re going to be fine,’ and I think she did that,” Moreno said.
Lucia and Ale Gonzalez, Regina Tovar and Maria del Pozo led a relentless defensive effort that proved to be a difference-maker for SJA. The speedy Lady Bloodhounds stuck to FBCA’s ball-handlers like glue to force turnovers and keep them from finding scoring opportunities.
SJA executed its offense at a level FBCA never reached. The Lady Bloodhounds passed the ball around and aggressively attacked the basket to maintain the lead, even as the Lady Eagles improved their defensive effort during the second half. Del Pozo scored 12 points, Tovar contributed 10 and Ale Gonzalez added nine to aid the win.
“It feels good, especially because we haven’t played in a long time. I think we started a little sloppy, and right after the first half they felt they were ready. It was better in the second half,” Moreno said. “We have a very fast team, so that full court pressure is something that helps us a lot, so we use it a lot. Our defense was very good.”
The Bloodhounds entered their game riding high after loudly cheering on the girls during their game. The boys got off to a quick start to take a 21-10 lead after the first behind strong 3-point shooting.
Lucky Edge (23 points) knocked down four 3-pointers during the first quarter and scored 14 points. The Bloodhounds continued to show off their skills from behind the arc with lights-out shooting all game. SJA hit 11 deep shots, with five from Edge and four from Rafa Varela, to help earn an 80-62 win over Houston Lutheran South and advance to Round 3.
“It feels great. These guys deserve it,” Bloodhounds coach Sam Lucio said. “We’ve been putting in a lot of work these last few days at practice to prepare for this team. We knew we had to come out with a hot start, because we’re playing at home and we had to use that advantage. Lucky’s a great shooter. We have a lot of good shooters, and we knew if we could move the ball around we’d get good looks, we just had to knock them down, and playing at home you should be able to do that.”
The Bloodhounds never let up after the fast start. Josh Cisneros (12) was a defensive force up high and down low to help SJA keep Houston Lutheran scoreless for almost five minutes late in the second quarter. Luigi Cristiano played well in the paint and dished out good assists to feed the bevy of Bloodhounds shooters.
SJA dominated the third quarter and held a comfortable 20-point lead throughout. Houston Lutheran deployed double and sometimes triple coverage on Edge, and Varela (24) stepped up to keep the offense hot. He raced through the Pioneers’ defense to the hoop and continued to show off his range from deep.
Down 56-36 with eight minutes to play, Houston Lutheran tried to up the defensive pressure to slow down the Bloodhounds. SJA made 10 trips to the free-throw line as the Pioneers fouled early and often on Bloodhounds possessions to stop the clock. The Bloodhounds shot 14-for-21 from the charity stripe and stayed focused, continuing to force turnovers and battle down low to maintain the lead despite the elongated quarter to clinch the Sweet 16 berth.
“That was the longest third quarter of my life. I had all the confidence in our boys that they were going to finish the game. They’ve been finishing all year, and they did a great job today,” Lucio said.
