SMHS BOYS BASKETBALL
Playing at the original Snake Pit on the campus of Goodnight Middle School as part of the annual retro game, the Rattlers defeated the Austin Del Valle Cardinals 7772.
The win improves San Marcos’ record to 10-8 overall before the Rattlers begin district play.
“I’m really proud of the guys because we have a lot of injured players,” Head Coach Dan Miller said. “We had guys cramping during the game, Del Valle was playing hard, and we found a way to win just by gutting it out. It was a really gutty effort.”
Coming off a tough loss to Austin Bowie, senior point guard Cash Good and the Rattlers knew they needed to refocus and regroup in order to get back into the win column.
“We just had a plan this week because we didn’t play our best like how we wanted to last Tues- day,” Good said. “We just knew our mindset coming out tonight had to be aggressive and just take care of the ball. [Just] do what we got to do to make sure that we can win again.”
Senior shooting forward Donovan Riddick agreed with his teammate, noting how the team was able to lock down in the fourth quarter and stave off a Del Valle comeback.
“We knew we had to come back and show some intensity,” Riddick said. “Last week we were in a close game with [Bowie], but we just had to finish. And today we finished exactly how we needed to. [Del Valle] started coming back after the third quarter, but we locked down. We understood that we needed to close the game.”
After trailing for the majority of the game, Del Valle made their comeback late in the third quarter before taking their largest lead of the game at 59-55.
But a 7-0 run by the Rattlers, capped by a three pointer from Riddick, put San Marcos back in front 62-59.
Del Valle tied the game back up at 64-64 only for Good to respond with a three-pointer, putting the Rattlers back in front at 67-64.
The Cardinals were unable to put together another comeback as San Marcos went on to win 77-72.
Good led the team in scoring with a game high 37 points along with four rebounds, three assists and four steals.
Riddick was second in scoring with 26 points and led the team in rebounds with 13 to complete the double-double.
Miller was also proud of his role players for being able to “Everyone did a little something without Josiah and Peter. That was the thing that we needed from our role players to play defense and rebound. The things that aren’t gonna show up in the box score. We know Donovan and Cash are gonna get a lot of our points, but Marcus [Espinoza] and Sergio [Gutierrez] and Damien [Lestourgeon], they did those things.”
With the game being retro night and playing at the middle school gyms, Miller talked about the importance of the game.
“It is really special for our guys to come back to where they played in middle school together,” Miller said. “We want to do it once a year. Retro night next year we’ll go to Miller and just keep rotating it. I thought it was a good community event and just so happened to be one of our former players on the other team, so it just made it a little bit more fun for the guys. But I’m glad we came out on top.”
San Marcos starts district play next Tuesday on the road against Buda Johnson. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.
cmcwilliams @sanmarcosrecord.com Twitter: @ColtonBMc
