San Marcos found a spark on the defensive end of the floor.
The Lady Rattlers (19-10, 3-7 district) held district foe San Antonio East Central (10-18, 2-8) to less than 10 points in three straight quarters Friday night en route to a 48-31 win, avenging the loss to the Lady Hornets on Jan. 3.
“We’ve run a lot of zone and we pride ourselves on our defense so we try to make sure that we communicate and that we work together on our zones,” head coach Veronda Kendall said. “We knew that for us, that’s where we get our spark and the girls, they were just on that tonight.”
Just two minutes into the game, the Lady Rattlers had already forced a multitude of turnovers, including a five-second violation on an inbound play at the 5:52 mark. But it was freshman center Saylor Upshaw who stole the show in the first quarter with a dominant performance from the middle of the visitors’ zone. Upshaw came in off of the bench and made an immediate impact with a fierce rip through that gave her the edge going to the basket for her first bucket of the night. The freshman got another tough finish over the middle right before the buzzer sounded, rewarding the hosts with a 12-10 lead after one.
The center wasn’t done getting her team ahead on the scoreboard, as she followed up her first-quarter performance by grabbing two more boards and finishing through contact for an old-fashioned 3-point play.
“(Upshaw’s) gonna be good,” Kendall said. “She’s an up and coming youngster that’s going to be a solid contributor in this program and I’m looking forward to the things she’s going to do and you saw a little bit of it tonight.”
What seemed like five people connected on a string, the Lady Rattlers moved together as one, keeping the pressure on from the tip. Junior guard Kayla Presley paced the team with four steals. Her interception at the top of the key gave her an opportunity to hit sophomore guard Vivan Hernandez who found senior post Grace Latham diving to the block. The purple and white never lost interest on defense and got three consecutive stops before the end of the half. East Central was locked down, only scoring eight points in the quarter — six of which came from the charity stripe. The pressure allowed the team to head to the locker room up 24-18.
Lady Hornets head coach Ian Ward and assistant coach Joshua Valdez were tagged with technical fouls, sending junior forward Faith Phillips to the line. She hit 2-4. Immediately on the inbounds play, sophomore sharpshooter Vivan Hernandez knocked down a 3-pointer, which put the Lady Rattlers up 36-20.
“It gets me going. Once I hit one I know I can hit another one,” Hernandez said. I keep my energy up and my defense I try to get stops so then we can come back and do stuff like this.”
East Central’s first bucket came with 3:50 in the fourth. And, coincidentally, it was Hernandez whose stroke continued to stretch the Lady Hornets zone while leaving the scoreboard 48-31.
Upshaw and the team felt the loss to East Central earlier in the month but they used it in a positive way to propel them past the Lady Hornets.
“It feels like we should’ve done this the first time,” Upshaw said confidently. “We knew this right from the start and just feeling that loss it made us want to come back stronger and harder and we did that tonight.”
Hernandez paced the team by scoring 11 points, mostly doing damage from behind the arc with three 3s. Upshaw followed closely with nine points and grabbed four boards. Phillips went 6-8 from the free throw line on her way to scoring nine points with one more rebound than Upshaw.
San Marcos returns to the floor when they go on the road for a tough battle against last year’s state champions, Converse Judson, this Friday at 7 p.m. Kendall dissected what the team will have to do in order to get pick up a win against the No. 23-ranked team in the state.
“We played them well in the first game,” Kendall said. “We just have to make sure that we understand the importance of every possession and that we take care of the ball. And of course, we’re going to have to show up on defense.”
