PHARR — The Harlingen Cardinals began their day at the Tri-City Classic with a bang as they fed off a strong start to breeze past PSJA High 94-37 in their tournament opener on Thursday at PSJA North High School.
The Cardinals used their trap defense and forced turnovers, while the offense got off to a hot start and led 21-11 after one quarter.
Kameryn Gonzalez scored seven points while Michael Arellano netted six to help fuel the first-quarter lead.
“The kids came out and played, and we got off to a good start,” said Harlingen coach Greg Yates. “We didn’t start strong on Tuesday (in a loss to McAllen Memorial) but they responded well today and I’m proud of their efforts. Right now the kids feel good about this win, but it’s a long tournament and this was only game one.”
Harlingen pulled away in the second quarter, outscoring PSJA 35-9 to take a comfortable 56-20 lead at the break.
Five Cardinals finished in double figures, including Gonzalez who netted a game high 18 points. Jeremy Vasquez scored 16, Antonio Aguilar had 15, Arellano scored 13 and Matthew Sesler dropped 13 points.
“Right now we’re playing with confidence and we’re starting to gel,” Vasquez said. “We’re pushing the tempo, playing good defense and our leadership has stepped up, and we’re playing as one team right now.”
In the Cardinals night game against Edcouch-Elsa, Arellano scored 23 points to lead Big Red to a 66-40 win.
The 2-0 Cards now enter Day 2 of the tournament today as the top seed from Pool E and will next face Harlingen South at noon.
South goes 1-1 on first day : After falling behind early against San Antonio Veterans, the Harlingen South Hawks found their footing and went on an 11-2 run that gave them their first lead of the afternoon at 11-9.
The extra effort foreshadowed the outcome as the Hawks picked up a 44-38 win over the Patriots to open up tournament play.
Sean Turrubiates netted a game high 17 points in the win and Grant Lowery finished with nine.
Despite the win, the Hawks struggled to shoot from beyond the arc, which is a rare sight.
South was fresh off a 12 three-point performance against La Joya on Tuesday, but saw its offense adjust and attack the basket more often against Veterans.
“We got off to a slow start, but much credit to Veterans because they did a great job on defending us,” said Hawks coach Brian Molina. “Defensively, we played well and we held a great offensive team under 40 points even on a day where our shooting wasn’t on point.”
It wasn’t until the final minutes of the game that South pulled away after a back-and-forth second half. The Hawks got some clutch baskets from Lowery and Chanz Love that helped ice the game in the final minute.
“I thought we found a spark in the second half; we decided to attack the basket more rather than shoot the easy three. We also became more aggressive defensively, ball pressure wise, and we forced them into some turnovers that helped us,” Molina said.
The momentum of the tournament-opening win did not, unfortunately, carry over to the Hawks’ second game of the day.
Once again they struggled from the floor and fell to La Joya Juarez-Lincoln 61-43 to finish Day 1 with a 1-1 record.
