San Marcos falls to No. 2 Fredericksburg

It was a tough night for San Marcos as the Ratters fell to No. 2 Fredericksburg  on Friday inside the Snake Pit.

For head basketball coach Jermaine Ervin, part of the struggle was creating an offense around one ball handler for the majority of the first half due to injuries and foul trouble. Despite the challenges, the Rattlers held the Billies to just 20 points during the first half.

“We pretty much played the 12 minutes of the 16 minutes without any guards,” Ervin said. “We were without one of our guards due to a death in her family and our other two guards are out due to injury. Then two out of our three guards got in foul trouble in the first couple of minutes so we played with a freshman guard and four posts…where we struggled offensively and breaking the trap, we played great defense and held [Fredericksburg] to just 20 points in the first half.”

However, Fredericksburg caught fire as the Billies made an eye-popping 10 3-pointers in the second half to outscore San Marcos 34-18.

“In the second half, the floodgates opened,” Ervin said. “Some of those shots that they missed and were contested, they [the Billies] were making them. Ella Hartman is one of the best shooters in the area that I know of and she missed some early but she made the adjustments … the corner 3 was something they struggled with early but in the second half it seemed the ball wasn’t even touching the rim and going straight through the net.”

It was the combination of the Billies hot hand along with San Marcos playing with young players out of position that ultimately proved to be the Rattlers’ downfall.

“The toughest thing with handling a lineup like that is we are made up of freshmen and sophomores,” Ervin said. “When we get into a scenario like that, [the underclassmen] have never practiced those scenarios. We have played more than we practiced so those players have never learned from those positions. Now the ball is moving at game speed with those players that have never played that position before which was our biggest pitfall.”

However, Ervin took away some positives from the game, including the tough defensive play that held Fredericksburg to just 20 points in the first half.

“I couldn’t be mad at them,” Ervin said. “They have seen it in practice before but it’s not the position they played in on top of the speed of the varsity game playing against one of the top teams in the state who is a well tuned oil machine that just ran away from us. Even with them [Fredericksburg] doing that, we played solid defense. We didn’t give up wide open layups, and we contested their 3-point shots but it was just one of those nights.”

Amiya Moore was the leading scorer for the Rattlers with 11 points followed by Saylor Upshaw with six points.

Now San Marcos will enter the off week for a much-needed practice.

“I told them after the game that we have to reflect,” Ervin said. “You can’t burn the film. We have to look at what we were thinking at the moment. I felt some of our young girls just panic in the moment. As we continued to play and compete, they didn’t start to panic as much as in the beginning. So once we get into practice during our open week, we are going to look at the film on Monday and get back to work. We are going to reflect on the positive things we did and correct the negative things we did because they just don’t know. In middle school, you can dribble through the defense and get the layup but playing high level basketball you just can’t do that. The players have hands, bodies, and are in position.”