Finishing games has been tough for San Marcos (19-12, 3-9 district) throughout league play.
More than half of its losses have come by single digits, including identical three-point losses to Cibolo Steele (24-9, 11-2) both times the teams met up.
The Lady Rattlers showed resilience in Tuesday night’s home game against the Lady Knights when they took the lead for the first time following senior guard Miranda Lamb’s 3-pointer leaving the score at 47-44. Steele responded with six unanswered points before senior forward Grace Latham halted the run with a 10-footer over the middle, leaving the Rattlers down 50-49.
With a minute left to play, the Lady Knights put up a four-straight 3s — all misses. But every time the ball came off the rim, a player in black and silver was there to pick it up, forcing San Marcos to resort to the foul game. The visitors missed the front end of a one-an-one but grabbed another offensive board, which ended up being the Achilles heel for the hosts at the end of a 54-51 heartbreaker.
Head coach Veronda Kendall was at a loss for words when trying to explain what happened to her team down the stretch.
“I guess I would just have to say, I don’t know, just maybe a mental lapse because I’ve seen us be better there,” Kendall said. “I don’t know but it was frustrating.”
With 2:53 in the first, junior forward Faith Phillips committed her second foul of the game and had to be subbed out. The junior made up for her time on the bench by carrying the scoring load, starting with a triple to begin the second quarter which cut Steele’s lead to 13-8. After opening up in man-to-man defense, San Marcos switched to a 2-3 zone, which opened the floodgates from three for Steele. All of their points in the second quarter were from beyond the arc. On offense, Phillips continued showing her versatility, finishing the half with a bucket in the paint.
The Lady Rattlers entered halftime trailing 22-17. Phillips and Latham were responsible for all of the Lady Rattler’s first-half points.
“They are experienced, they’ve been in this program and have been grinding for years so they have a comfort level going into big games that I’m OK with,” Kendall said. “Steele played behind us in the post and anytime teams play behind us, we want to get it to our bigs and let them go to work.”
It took more than two scorers to compete against the No. 19-ranked team in the state. Someone had to help the bigs score the ball. Sophomore guard Angelina Sotelo who stepped up in the second half off the bench and ended the third by scoring four consecutive points in the last minute, which only left the purple and white trailing 35-33.
San Marcos switched to another zone, this time a 1-3-1, that forced Steele to penetrate. Latham was tasked with protecting the rim, so inside scoring wasn’t an option for the Lady Knights.
“We know that we have to play defense. We have to box out and we have to rebound,” Kendall said. “There were a few lapses there that we came up short but keeping teams off balance … we know that’s something we have to do.”
After back-to-back turnovers, Sotelo euro-stepped her way to two more points, followed by Phillips who scored on a post-up, tying it at 42 apiece. Lamb finally hit the shot that would put the Rattlers up, but then Steele resorted back to what was working all night — hitting 3s. Their seventh and eighth of the night capped off another three-point win over San Marcos, 54-51.
“I told the girls after the game I was very proud of how they played. They played with heart. I thought they were composed. I mean, we’re just gonna keep working,” Kendall said.
Phillips finished with a game-high 17 points and six rebounds by scoring from everywhere on the court. Behind her was Latham, who chipped in 11 points, two rebounds and a block.
San Marcos plays inside the Snake Pit for the final time on Feb. 7 when they take on Schertz Clemens at 7 p.m. The last time the two teams met up it was a six-point game. The Lady Rattlers look to finish the end of games better in order to pick up another win before the end of the season.
