COASTAL BEND NOTEBOOK: No. 6 Lady Eagles eyeing undefeated district crown

By Joe Bowling
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Updated: February 2, 2021

by Mark Molina | RSL

With two games to play in the District 29-5A season, the No. 6 Corpus Christi Veterans Memorial Lady Eagles are 14-0 and have already wrapped up the district crown.

The only question left for the Lady Eagles to answer is if they can secure an undefeated district title.

Veterans head coach Roy De La Pena believes that will be easier said than done with a road game at Flour Bluff (11-4) and a home contest against Victoria West (11-3) still to go.

“Man, those are two tough games,” De La Pena said. “Our goal is to go undefeated, but these teams have nothing to lose, so they’re probably going to shoot bombs away. We don’t have anything to lose, but we still want to get that title undefeated. It’s hard to do, and I think we can do it, but beating us will be a great win for either one of those teams, we just have to see what happens.”

Veterans defeated Flour Bluff 46-37 back on January 1 and upended Victoria West 53-34 four days later.

At the moment, the Lady Eagles are on a 19-game winning streak, with their last blemish coming back on Nov. 17, 2020 in a 60-59 loss to Harlingen High.

Still, even with a perfect district record, De La Pena still thinks his team has yet to peak and hopes to see his team shoot the ball better in this final week of the season.

“I’m challenging the girls because we have so many players and every game somebody has shown up,” De La Pena said. “One game someone will play great – but another won’t – and I can’t wait until we can all play good at the same time. We haven’t shot the ball well, but we shoot all the time. It’s going to happen. We’re still winning and we haven’t played our best ball yet as a team, and we haven’t shot the ball well as a team. We’re waiting for it.”

Opening tip for the Lady Eagles and Lady Hornets will be tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Flour Bluff High School.

EAGLES TAKING FLIGHT

Over on the boys side, the Eagles are in the midst of a tough district battle.

Veterans is currently 8-4 and tied for third place with Corpus Christi King with four games two go, including a road showdown with the Mustangs next Tuesday.

Fortunately for the Eagles, they have plenty of momentum, having won four straight with victories over Victoria East, Corpus Christi King, Moody and Carroll.

Up next for the Eagles is a home game against Flour Bluff tonight at 6:30 p.m. In the first game against the two back on January 1, Flour Bluff cruised to a 92-46 victory at home.

The road doesn’t ease up after Tuesday, however, as the Eagles still have games at district-leading Victoria West on Friday night and another high-stakes matchup at King next Tuesday before finishing off the district season with a home game against Gregory-Portland.

Speaking of the District 29-5A race, Victoria West still sits at the top with a 9-0 district record followed by Flour Bluff at 11-2, Veterans Memorial (8-4), King (8-4) and Ray (7-5)

Victoria West will play at Carroll (3-9), King will hit the road to play Moody (4-8) and Ray will host Victoria East (2-10).

RUN IT BACK

The No. 21 Tuloso-Midway Warriors took control of District 31-4A this past Wednesday after escaping with a 71-65 victory over the H.M. King (Kingsville) Brahmas.

After the Warriors went on to defeat Zapata 77-55 and the Brahmas took the win over Alice 84-58 to end the week, the table is set for another big matchup with district title implications when the two teams meet again at 6 p.m. Wednesday night in Kingsville.

Last Wednesday, the Warriors got off to a good start and led nearly the entire way while holding off multiple second-half runs by the Brahmas and were led by a 22-point performance from Aaron Pizana as well as 27 combined points from Max Paiz and Tony Benavides.

T-M head coach Tres Garcia said his team’s tough pre-district schedule helped his team prepare to finish off close games much like they did Wednesday night

“They learned a little bit from those tough games when we had some tough losses earlier in the year,” Garcia said. “I think that prepared us. Kingsville is good. They’re tough, they’re gritty, they get after you and they made it hard on us. We had to finish the game, which is something we hadn’t been doing early in the season.

“We have to start the game (Wednesday) with energy,” Garcia added. “We know it’s going to be tough and we know (H.M. King) plays well at home and they shoot the ball well. We’ve got to contest shots and we’ve got to rebound the ball.”

As for the Brahmas, head coach Moses Mora was pleased with the effort last Wednesday and hopes his team can play a cleaner game.

“I’m very proud of my boys and they didn’t back down, even though T-M has been blowing some teams out of the water,” Mora said. “Our boys fought to the very end. We had some miscues that we had and easy shots that we missed. Those are things we intend to fix and hopefully have fixed this time around. We’ll see how we come out. We made some adjustments and hopefully that works out for us.”

Mora also is looking for a fast start after leading scorers in the last game Ace Lacour and Nate Garcia scored 25 of their 33 points in the second half.

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