Northside Madness

San Antonio - Paul Taylor Fieldhouse, home of Northside ISD basketball programs, played host to their 10-team 27-6A district Saturday afternoon. The five games showcased some of the city's top talent and even the state. TexasHoops.com was on hand to capture the action.

The San Antonio Warren Warriors (16-7, 2-1) held a five-point advantage after one-quarter 12-7 but opened the game up in the second with a 19 point quarter to take a 31-13 lead into the half over the Taft Raiders (2-19, 0-3).

Just when he game looked out of reach with a 40-22 Warriors lead, Taft went on a 12-3 run to get the score under double digits with 17 seconds left in the third (43-34). But the Raiders gave up a buzzer-beating layup to Charles Johnson to give Warren a little breathing room to end the third quarter up 45-34.

The fourth quarter started with Taft's Barrera Tore with a bucket to pull within nine, 45-36, but that would be short-lived, and that would be the closest that the Raiders would get as Warren took the game 62-51.

"It's hard when you get up early like we did, and then try to keep the energy going, but Taft is a well-coached team and their record won't reflect it, but they compete and play hard," said Kyle Smith, Warren head coach.

The Taft Raiders received a large dose of St Edward's signee Johnson, and coach Smith was happy to see him on the court.

"It's great to have [Charles] back. He fractured his ankle during the first week of the season, and he has had only two or three practices, but it was great to see him out there."

Smith also said that Johnson gives the Warriors versatility as an inside/out player.

Johnson says that the Warriors were feeling too "comfortable" on the court with the lead.

"We thought it was going to be an easy one," said Johnson. "We starting playing like we were too comfortable with the lead that we had and Taft started coming back on us. But it feels good to put it all together and get the win."

The Holmes Huskies (16-6, 3-0) went to the locker room with a 20-15 lead over the O'Connor Panthers (11-11, 1-2), and 12 of those 20 points came off four three-pointers.

O'Connor came out of the break going on a 9-2 run (24-22), and the Panthers had their first lead of the game at the 4:45 mark. Senior wing DeAndre Young made five straight points for the Panthers and seven out of the Panthers nine points during that stretch.

With the time under a minute to play in the third, Homes took the lead 34-33 after Marco Anthony connected on two free-throws. Holmes would never lose the lead again, but the game was still never out of reach for O'Connor.

After a three and a lay-in by Garrett Crane, the Panthers pulled within two, 48-46 and had a chance to tie or go ahead three free-throws from junior Cody Farmer with four seconds remaining. After missing the first two, Farmer connected on the third to get within one, 48-47. After the missed opportunities, two more Anthony free-throws with gave the Huskies a 3-point victory, 50-47.

Anthony led all scorers with 26 points, including three three-pointers.

"This game was a small game of runs," said assistant coach John Vargas. "We were able to get to the free-throw line and be patient. It worked us and the kids did a great job responding down the stretch."

Holmes senior guard Ricky Rodriguez finished the day with 16 and scored most of his points off penetration.

"[O'Connor] was over playing Marco Anthony, so I knew I had to step up and help my other teams," said Rodriguez of the Panthers defense. "I saw that there were a few holes and when Marco was down low, I was able to get inside the defense and lay it in."

"We were focused on getting stops," said Anthony of the Huskies defense. "We knew we were going to be able to score once we had established our defense, but they never went away. We needed them to miss their free-throws and they did."

Brennan Bears (13-10, 2-1) entered their match against Stevens Falcons (10-9, 0-3) without their leading scorer Jack Valero, due to a foot injury. With Valero sidelined, the Bears went out and distributed the ball and got points from eight different players. Derian Castellanos and Jai Carter both led the team with 14 points.

Down two at the half, 35-33, the Bears came out in the third and outscored the Falcons 23-11.

"We were active on defense and did a good job of jumping on the ball and rotating," said Brennan's head coach Koty Cowgill. "Our intensity picked up and we did it without fouling."

In the fourth the Falcons chipped away at the Bears 10 point lead of 56-46. The Bears had the hot hand, but things started changing as the Falcons put the Bears on the line. Brennan struggled to put Stevens away, missing nine free-throws (12-21). The Flacons got as close as four (71-67) with 43 seconds remaining, but it was too late.

"We struggled and when you miss as many [free-throws] as we did you put yourself into a bad situation. Fortunately we won, but that could have easily been a double digit win," added Cowgill.

"We did a great job of passing the ball around and executed well today," said senior guard Castellanos. "We didn't try to do too much out there as individuals. We played together and got the win."

In what was to be the best game of the day on paper, turned out to be a runaway victory for the Brandeis Broncos (21-0, 3-0), as they beat the Marshall Rams (15-6, 2-1) 90-65. Kobe Magee lead all scorers with 32 points, which included the junior point guard converting on 7-out-9 three-pointers. Central Michigan signee Ellis Jefferson added 30 points of his own while hitting three three-pointers.

The undefeated Broncos came into Saturday night's meeting ranked No.4 in the state according to the TABC Top 25 6A poll, and they were tested early in the first half.

With the score 38-33, Marshall was down three headed into half-time and the Rams had put themselves into position to give the Broncos their first loss of the season. With the play of Colgate signee Jordan Burns and Oklahoma Christian signee Dorian Lopez (the two combined for 46 points), Marshall showed that they had the scoring power to keep up with Brandeis.

But then, the second half began. The dream of any upset and showing that they were equal to the Broncos came to an end as Marshall fell behind after scoring only nine third-quarter points and giving up 24. Magee and Jefferson lit up the nets hitting threes and mid-range jumpers. With the score (62-41) and game out of reach going into the fourth, the Broncos went on another scoring spree dropping 28 points in the final eight minutes. The fourth quarter showed that the Broncos are one of the favorites to get to State from Region IV.

"What I told the team is we are fine. We are winning," said Broncos head coach Marc Gardner. "We had some players in foul trouble and went to an unusual rotation throwing other players out there to make up for the absence of Ellis. We made a deceision to change to zone which we havent played in a long time but it worked."

"We have some of the better guards around. We have a luxury with Kobe, Ellis, Zach (Starkes), Williams (Reaford) and others and we are able to move them around."

The almost flawless performance by the No. 35 ranked guard in the state by TexasHoops.com, Magee is no stranger of big games.

"Honestly I felt like I could shoot from anywhere," said Magee of his three-point shooting. "I got confidence after I hit two in a row. Just having that confidence and that thought that I'm going to make my next shot is a big reason why I kept hitting the next one."

The fifth and final game of the day was a complete contrast of what was witnessed the game prior. The Clark Cougars wrapped up "Northside Madness" with a 50-41 victory over the John Jay Mustangs.

Clark played a half-court offense and worked the ball around until the right shot presented itself. The ball started and usually finished in the hands of junior point guard Johnathan Reyes as he sliced through defenders and made sharp moves inside the paint.

"He is getting better and better," said Clark coach Steve Sylestine. "He is the hardest working kid on his own I have ever coached. He wants to get better at his overall game, and he practices at it. Sometimes in games, he tries to do too much and does too much because he wants to win. He is learning the nuances of how to manage the game, but his improvement is showing and he was big for us in the fourth quarter because he was still attacking Jay's defense, but he was also facilitating to our bigs.

After a 30-26 lead at the half for the Cougars, the 3rd quarter was slow with only 13 points between the two teams. Still, that is how the Cougars like to play, and their defense only gave up five points in that quarter.

"During the first half we gave up six three-pointers, so we wanted to come out and change the defense around," said Sylestine. We were playing them to drive, and we did tell our players not to allow Jay's players into the paint. So we overplayed them a bit and so we made the right adjustments to stop their perimeter scoring."

"I saw that they were playing us man, so I wanted to push the ball past them to get to the basket," said Reyes. "There were a few times that I noticed that they were slow on the weakside help so I got the ball to our bigs down low."