By CONSTANCIO MARTINEZ, JR.
Special to the PRESS
This past Friday, January 9 the 4A Port Isabel ECHS boys’ basketball team hosted the 6A Weslaco Panthers in a non-district game.
Entering the matchup, the Tarpons were coming off a 63-55 win over the Zapata Hawks. Although the Panthers were coming off a 72-61 loss to Los Fresnos, they were still one of the top teams in the Valley, as they held the #5 spot in the RGV rankings.
As the game got underway, the Tarpons got off to a rough start as they quickly saw themselves down 9-0 with just a minute into the game.
The Tarpons finally ended their dry spell as PI’s point man, Eli Alvarez found Grayson Estes open for the three and Estes swooshed it in. A minute later, Alvarez hit a 3-pointer of his own to make it a 10-6 game.
Down 16-9, Estes then hit his second 3-pointer of the night from 25 feet out drawing ‘oohs and aahs’ from the crowd. Unfortunately for the Tarpons, they had issues turning the ball over. As the quarter came to a close, the Panthers had a commanding 28-15 lead.
As play resumed in the second quarter, the Tarpons went on a small 6-0 run to make it a 28-21 game. Not to be outdone, the Panthers went on a 6-2 run of their own led by 6’-3” point guard, Kai Fino.
The Tarpons did reduce their turnovers during the quarter, but got outrebounded by Weslaco which led to second chance points for the Panthers. By the end of the quarter, Weslaco had extended their lead to 45-28.
The Tarpons continued to battle it out in the second half, but it was an uphill battle considering Port Isabel was without its shooting guard Shiloh Galvan who is also the team’s leading scorer.
Weslaco ended up being the better team, as the Panthers went on to win the game, 86-45. Weslaco improved to 18-8 for the season, while the Tarpons now stood at 8-14.
“I thought our boys put up a tough fight throughout the game. We were missing some players but I thought overall everyone stepped up and battled all game.” Said PI head coach Gilbert Rodriguez. “We’ve played a very tough non-district schedule once again. Our boys will definitely be ready for district. We want to invite all our Tarpon Fans to come out and support our boys and girls at home on January 16th. It will be our 1st district game.”
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