BY GREG SELBER

SAN JUAN – One of the local papers had decided that Edinburg, on a two-game losing streak and minus two starters due to injury, was the underdog Monday night against a steady Weslaco group. Or at any rate, that’s how the Lady Bobcats interpreted it.

So Lady Bobcat Coach Rachel Carmona executed the logical maneuver to try and motivate her team, which dropped to third place in District 31-5A in the last week of play after having been in contention for the league title. She put that clipping up on the bulletin board for popular consumption.

“That’s the first thing I did, I wanted them to see it,” said Carmona, whose gritty bunch grinded out a 45-42 bi-district win with some late heroics from Laura Torres and clutch free throws by Emma Lopez. “Weslaco played some great defense tonight, they got us rattled a bit midway through. But our girls kept their composure, they made some big shots at the end.”

EHS (26-8) outlasted the Pantherettes (23-13) with their leading rebounder (Anaka Garcia) on the bench along with three-point shooting whiz Victoria Ponce. Those wounded seniors watched as their teammates grabbed an early 8-point lead, lost it by halftime, and then came up large and in charge when the chips were down.

Torres, who led her team with 14 points, converted a layup for a 42-40 lead and then ripped one from Weslaco’s Alex Rocha to gain possession. With 33 seconds left, Lopez made a pair of free throws under pressure for a 44-40 lead, and after Clari Villarreal (19 to lead all scorers) tossed one in, Torres popped one of two to give her team the cushion it needed to advance to area against the winner of Tuesday’s San Antonio Southwest-McAllen Rowe matchup.

It was nip and tuck all the way for the Lady ‘Cats, who’d looked like world-beaters until their injury problems. Torres, who has picked up the slack in the absence of two regulars, said that the fact that the team was underrated coming in made a difference in the approach to the bi-district battle.

“They were calling us a ‘sleeper,’ or whatever,” the aggressive junior shrugged. “But we just felt like we had to come out and prove that we have a playoff-worthy team, even with the injuries. Some people really stepped up tonight and had amazing games, like Emma. We just had to push a little harder tonight, and we did that.”

Lopez, a feast-or-famine inside player who has played a more prominent role in the EHS gameplan these days, can dominate at times, but at others has a tendency to force shots. She was shooting in the mid-50s percentage-wise from the free-throw line coming in, but stepping to the stripe inside the final minute did not faze her.

“Oh, I guess I was a little nervous,” admitted the burly senior, who’s got some nifty low-post moves and hit the boards hard Monday for a game-high 14 caroms. “But I just thought of practice. We work a lot in practice on free throws and if we miss, sometimes we have to run. I just thought, ‘You know…I really don’t want to run right now!’”

OLD FOES SQUARE OFF

These two teams were outstanding last year, each extending beyond bi-district before getting silenced by McAllen High down the road. But neither was exactly on a roll coming in this time, as EHS had dropped a pair while Weslaco went down to a surging Brownsville Lopez group last week. These two had met earlier in the season, with Edinburg winning by five.

Coach Griselda Fino’s band has weathered the loss of star Kimberly Armstrong, out all year with a torn ACL, getting strong block work from Rocha (13 rebounds Monday) and explosive scoring from Villarreal and Kim Marquez. Before the bi-district tilt, Fino noted that as far as she was concerned, her team was 0-0 once again.

“I think we’ve grown up a lot, and we aren’t inexperienced anymore,” she said. “I mean, what is it, 30 games? We should be ready to do it now.”

The second-place finisher from 32-5A has been consistent all year, with losses to league champs Hidalgo and McAllen Memorial, plus defeats against Edinburg and Edinburg North before a steady climb through the Lower Valley league. Matched against the Lady ‘Cats for the second time, they started slowly but came gradually on, establishing a 24-21 halftime bulge.

EHS had jumped out fast, pounding the boards against a roster with only one legitimate inside player and very little depth. Standing in for the shelved Garcia, freshman Michellin Mercelita, Lopez, and rugged Sharmee Tigner took turns down low, and the result was a 16-8 early advantage for the Red and Blue. Mercelita pounced for an early block on Rocha while Tigner, sister of former Economedes multi-sport star Shay Hernandez (on hand to watch the action at P-SJ-A High) came up with a pair of steals and a deuce to get rolling in the first.

With Bianca Casas tossing great passes out front, Edinburg did not look like much of a sleeper. Torres, averaging 16 ppg for the year with a high of 41 versus P-SJ-A Memorial, would throw in eight in the half.

But just as they’d been sharp in the first, the Lady ‘Cats slowed down after the initial eight minutes, standing around on defense and trying without success to dump the ball down low from too high out front.

Weslaco got down and dirty on D and took advantage to spin off a 12-3 run, with Marquez and Villarreal out-quicking the EHS guards and pulling up in open space for uncontested shots. When Jiselle DeLeon made a free throw following a netter from Villarreal, it was 24-19, Pantherettes, late. Casas came down with an answer to make it a 3-point game at the half.

WHICH WAY WILL IT GO?

In the past, Edinburg has been a dangerous three-point shooting club, but without Ponce, it has been a tougher go from the outside. The team’s best remaining long-range shooter is Stephanie Nunez, who came in with 31 bombs to her credit, and when she and Casas knocked down trifectas in the third – each landing on the floor after their shot – the tally was 29 apiece with a lot of basketball left to be played. Those three-balls were absolutely mandatory for the Lady ‘Cats to entertain hopes of moving on.

Villarreal, who’s got hot wheels and is at her best breaking down the D with the dribble-drive, went off for nine in the third quarter but Nunez, playing one of her best all-around games of the year, turned up the defensive intensity Monday. She can seem to float on the outside waiting for the rainbow J at times, but with the playoffs on the line, the spindly Pharr North transfer got after it, big time.

“At one point she told me, ‘I have four fouls? That’s impossible,’” laughed Torres, adding that her teammate was simply one of the keys to the win with her loose-ball dives and gutsy defense.

Villarreal drained a money three from the corner for a 37-34 margin as the third drained away, but again it was Tigner with the huge step-up, battling to two free throws and then giving her group the go-ahead at 38-37 with a score from the near baseline heading into the fourth.

At times in the final period, it looked like a match out of the 1940s, as each team took some air out of the ball at different junctures, trying to shorten the night and bring it down to a couple of execution attempts. Lopez hammered inside for a shortie and after a Tigner steal, the Lady ‘Cats went delay, looking for the backdoor cut against a fast Weslaco D.

However, the Pantherettes held and got three free throws to knot the affair at 40. Rocha’s offensive rebound off a missed charity toss was the high point of the sequence; that girl is strong, moves well, and has sure hands. Though she scored just six points, she was a force on the blocks.

With Guns n’ Roses (who?) blaring raucous waves through the gym and a vaguely annoying DJ reminding the crowd that, “This is the plaaaayyofffs!” the units returned to action, with the ultimate result like low-hanging fruit, there for either to grab with one last burst of effort, against fatigue.

Lopez spun in the lane for a way-off attempt but then Torres came up with the steal against Rocha after her layup, and EHS was in the driver’s seat up 2 at 42-40.

With Edinburg holding, Lopez nearly turned it over at 1:26 and soon after, Weslaco’s Villarreal corralled a loose ball caused by defensive pressure from DeLeon.

Down came the Pantherettes with a chance to tie, but Rocha missed inside under duress from Mercelita and Lopez. After a Weslaco foul and EHS inbounds, the tricky junior Casas found Lopez, with Rocha hacking her for two shots.

The senior post calmly sank a pair but Villarreal raced down to bring it back to a 2-point thing. Then Torres weaved her way through three defenders to reach the frontcourt, and with 13 seconds left, made one of two from the line to seal it.

A few days ago, such an outcome might have seemed like a longshot for a team hampered by obstacles and with its back against the wall. But the Lady ‘Cats refused to lose Monday, getting important contributions from a number of kids who have toiled in the shadows for the most part in 2009-10. It’s the kind of win a coach will remember for a long time.

“They did great tonight, they worked hard,” Carmona grinned afterward. “They kept their cool and they did what they had to do at the end. I am very proud of my girls.”

Tags: Basketball- Girls, edinburg, lady bobcats, panthers, rio grande valley, weslaco