By Larry Gage
Special to the PRESS
The Port Isabel Lady Tarpons basketball team led start to finish Friday night and got into the win column with a 43-25 victory over the Santa Rosa Lady Warriors at Tarpon Gym. It was the team’s second game of the season and the win evened its record at 1-1.
The Santa Rosa shooters could not seem to find the basket in the first quarter and a free throw gave the visitors their only point of the quarter.
“(It was) sloppy but we’ll take a victory,” Port Isabel head girls basketball coach Kyle DeMoss said afterwards. “We got to get better for next week.”
Sabrina Gonzalez got hot in the second half, making three straight three-point shots in the third quarter.
“She missed four or five in the first half, and the first thing I told her at halftime was keep shooting,” DeMoss said. “When she stops shooting that’s when she’s not effective.”
“I think it was just a lot more communication as a team,” Gonzalez told the Press after the game. “The shots were open so I had to take them. When my feet are set, and no one’s on me, that’s when I know it’ll go in. I feel it in my hands.”
Gonzalez did make one three-pointer in the first half for a total of four on the night. Layni Mata and Samantha Chapa also each made a three-point shot.
It was 12-1, Port Isabel, at the end of the opening quarter, 24-14, at the break, and 38-18, in favor of the home team at the start of the fourth quarter.
“We had only been practicing for a week,” Layni Mata said. “And other teams have had almost a month already.”
It was a better performance all the way around for the girls and Lady Tarpon Layni Mata summed it up.
“I think tonight we were a little more confident. All of us were pretty nervous for our first game. We had a lot of new girls, a whole different team this year. I think everybody was a little more comfortable with each other. In the end we made more shots than they did.”
The action, as it often does, got a little rough at times, and Mata commented on that part of the game.
“They’re a pretty rough team but we just kept fighting, and I think that’s what’s most important – not to give up. I think this was their first game.”
Mata was satisfied with the improvements in her game since the team’s opening-game loss to Harvest Christian Academy last Tuesday.
“I told myself, after Tuesday, to drive in more, and most of my points were drive-ins, layups. And tonight I shot a little more, too.”
The Lady Tarpons open their district schedule this Friday, Dec. 18, at Raymondville.
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