Gonzales basketball shows progress with improved record

GONZALES — The Gonzales Apaches finished their season at home with a 51-35 loss to the La Vernia Bears, moving to 2-10 in district while the Bears stayed at third place in District 26-4A with their 8-4 record.

The Bears led the first quarter 11-6 before increasing their lead in the second quarter with a 19-6 advantage, ending the half up 30-12. La Vernia added 14 in the third frame to the Apaches’ 10 but then finally Gonzales took a 13-7 lead in the fourth to finish out with a 51-35 loss.

Aaron Hunt led the team with nine points, three rebounds, one assist and one steal. Khalil Smith played 21 minutes, scoring eight points while grabbing seven rebounds and one steal. Trevion McNeil came away with eight points and one rebound.

The Apaches finish the season with a better record than the previous two years and a young core to work with. Despite the two wins, if fans were to take a look at each game report, there has been progress made versus the previous regime.

“The scores might not show it but if you go back and look at those scores, those are teams that are still trying to fight and blow us out in the fourth quarter,” Apaches’ head coach Derek Williams said after the Cuero win last week. “We’ve been in every game, first quarter, second quarter, third quarter and we’re playing for pride and we’ve always known that.”

“These senior group of kids, this is the first big group of senior kids that’s been here since 2011,” he continued. “We haven’t had any. These kids have stayed, some of them don’t get a lot of minutes but they’ve stayed and that’s another thing that these young kids can see that these seniors are here sticking it out. The 11th, 10th and 9th graders on this team are seeing this growth. So it’s pride and it’s growth and that to me that’s much bigger than just sitting up her and trying to accomplish that you still know you got a lot of work to do.”

Williams even talked about the reputation that Gonzales has had, with many believing that the Apaches are a hard-hitting, rough team on the basketball court. Even with bench clearing incident that happened at home against Cuero on Jan. 15, Williams believes that his team has shown composure throughout the season.

In the Cuero game on Feb. 9, the Gobblers were a bit frustrated, with one player in particular fouling hard. When he reached his five fouls, the player initially refused to give the Apache head coach the customary handshake when fouled out. Williams was asked on how important was it to stay level headed and how much did it affect that particular game.

“I even think the last time we played [Cuero] at home, remember that bench clearing brawl their whole bench was off and trying to wrestle,” he recalled. “We had one kid that got caught in there and they threw him out. Everybody else that was on our bench was there. I thought we were level headed the last time and I think we’re level headed this time.”

Williams continued, saying that the group of kids he has on the team is a good one, despite the bad rep that they may have.

“We’re not what people think we are,” he said. “We’re not some bad group of kids that you can’t take out of town. These guys, I can tell you right now we got about five or six honor roll students on there. We got two or three kids that are already going to college and we got really good kids here. I think people are just going to have to understand that there’s a stigmata that’s with this group of kids that they’re bad kids. I think that has been blown way out of proportion. I think this is a good group of kids, every game and every coach will tell you throughout district that we played really hard and I think it showed tonight.”

In the stat sheets, 2016 will read Gonzales Apaches 2-10 in District 26-4A. But Williams is hoping that beyond this season, those paying attention will point to this year as the beginning of the turnaround for Gonzales.