SaberCats surge past Lobos to secure area round win

3 weeks ago 81

MISSION — Edinburg Vela bounced a district champion from the state playoffs for the second time in four days as the SaberCats defeated the La Joya Palmview Lobos 49-40 on Friday at Palmview High School in Region IV-5A DI area round action.

The SaberCats (26-10) advance to next week’s regional semifinals to face San Antonio Pieper (27-6). Game details are to be determined.

The District 30-5A champion Palmview Lobos finish their year 27-8 overall.

“It feels great and I’m so proud of our girls. We knew coming in it was going to be a battle,” Vela head coach Lottie Zarate said. “We knew they were a physical team and they were never going to let up. We talked about that in yesterday’s practice, in pregame. Three words I gave the girls today was focus, fight and finish, and they did the job.”

The Lobos had the SaberCats on their heels during the first half thanks to a 7-0 run to start the second quarter. Palmview was active on the offensive glass as Mia Rojas, Marina Rodriguez and Alia Garza gave the Lobos second-chance opportunities.

The SaberCats trailed by two at the break but turned things around on the defensive end to find their second-half spark. Vela limited Palmview to four points in the third quarter to take the lead, and in the fourth, leaned on the experience of seniors GG Betancourt and Ava Tovar to carry them home.

“I think we just wanted it so much that we would do anything, and we have the support behind us. No matter how much we were down, we were still cheering, still yelling, our desire to win never wavered,” Tovar said. “I think that’s what really put us over the edge. We’re not going to quit just because things get hard, we’re going to come back and fight even harder.”

Vela battled down low in the second half as Savanah Rivera and Aurora Guzman crashed the offensive and defensive boards, and the SaberCats’ guards started jumping passing lanes to create turnovers and turned them into points.

Tovar scored a game-high 15 points with eight coming during the fourth quarter. Betancourt finished with 12 points and five assists. Madison Cantu knocked down a trio of 3-pointers to finish with 10 points, Rivera added six and nine boards, and Guzman was a key contributor down the stretch with five points and five rebounds off the bench.

Vela finished as the No. 3 seed in District 31-5A but has proven that seeding doesn’t matter through two rounds of the Class 5A DI playoffs.

“I think there was some talk that we wouldn’t even make the playoffs,” Betancourt said. “To be able to get this far, nobody saw those days in the gym, waking up early mornings, staying late to shoot. It just shows anything’s really possible. We ended up finishing third but we fought every time and we knew we were going to fight in the playoffs. It prepared us.”

Nicole Flores led Lobos with a team-high 11 points while Rojas and Rodriguez finished with eight points apiece. Sophia Benitez chipped in with seven points and Garza scored six.

While Palmview’s season ends in the area round, the Lobos made history this year by winning their first ever playoff game in the bi-district round against Corpus Christi Veterans.

Edinburg Vela, meanwhile, is headed to the third round of the playoffs for the third consecutive season. A tough matchup with state-ranked Pieper awaits.

“We just have to keep our heads straight and focus. We’re here for a reason and we’re going to give it our all,” Betancourt said.

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