SAN ANTONIO — Junior center Grace Latham and sophomore forward Faith Phillips had one job on offense.
“Get big in the paint!” head coach Veronda Kendall shouted throughout the game Tuesday night.
The pair of posts did their jobs, combining for 37 points in San Marcos’ 57-49 road victory over San Antonio East Central.
“We’ve been working on guard (to) post, just trying to get the ball into the post,” Phillips said. “And that’s been one of Coach’s goals from the beginning, is to try and get it to the post more often. And I think we did that and it’s finally starting to work.”
The Lady Rattlers got off to a sluggish start, giving up three treys in the first four minutes of the game to fall behind, 9-4. The visitors leaned on Phillips to keep them in game, and the sophomore responded with nine points in the period to keep the score tied, 14-14, heading into the second.
The Lady Hornets’ hot shooting continued, though, as they canned another three triples and stifled San Marcos on defense to build a 30-25 lead by the end of the first half.
“We’re usually a defensive team, but we haven’t been playing our defense that well lately,” Phillips said. “So, that’s something that we have to get back into the mentality of, is playing with harder defense. Because again, that’s how we work on offense. That’s how we start getting it going.”
Starting freshman guard Vivian Hernandez fell into foul trouble during the opening half and needed sit to begin the second. The Lady Rattlers turned to fellow freshman guard Angelina Sotelo to run the offense.
Sotelo delivered with seven points in the third quarter, knifing through the East Central defense and finishing at the rim.
“I just saw the floor, saw the opening and just took it up.” Sotelo said. “I just did my thing.”
Still, San Marcos trailed 43-41 entering the final quarter. But the team followed Sotelo’s lead, finding other ways to score inside. Phillips tied the game at 45-45 with a pair of free throws and found senior guard JoAnna Galvan for a jumpshot on the next possession for the go-ahead basket.
The hosts never came back. The visitors closed out on a 10-4 run to clinch the 57-49 victory. The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Lady Rattlers.
“We just weren’t us. Since we’ve been losing, we’ve just lost our mojo,” Sotelo said. “It was tough in the beginning but we pulled out in the end. We did pretty good.”
Phillips paced the team with 24 points, followed by Latham with 13 and Sotelo with eight.
San Marcos (20-13, 4-6 district) will return home to take on first-place Converse Judson on Friday at 7 p.m. inside the Snake Pit. The Lady Rattlers fell, 81-34, in their first matchup against the Lady Rockets, but Phillips knows her team can do better.
“I think we gave up at Judson,” Phillips said. “We can’t give up this time. We have to put it in our heads that we can beat them and we have to go into that game with that mindset.”
