Turnovers doom Wildcats in loss

WAELDER — Whether it was youth or rust, the Waelder Wildcats did not come out to play, head coach Brandon Howard noted as the home squad lost to the San Marcos Home School Panthers 70-63 in non-district play Tuesday.

Waelder never led, tying the game just twice before ultimately losing out to the Panthers.

“We didn’t come to play,” Howard said. “I don’t want to take anything from San Marcos Home School but we did not play Waelder Wildcat basketball.”

The first frame showed off Waelder’s problems on the offensive side of things as too many shots were missed and too many turnovers were committed to get their plays rolling.

“San Marcos got deflections on pretty much every pass we threw tonight,” Howard explained. “I mean, it’s just a learning curve, we just got to be better passers and just fake passes to make passes, simple basketball we know to do we just did not do it tonight.”

The Panthers had their biggest lead late in the third quarter with a bucket to go up 43-30. However the Wildcats were able to fight back, with quick baskets by Tracy Moore, Steven Ewing, Aaron Wilson and Carlos Reyes to cut the lead to 43-40. Later, Moore grabbed a steal and finished with another bucket to tie the game at 45.

“Tracy played a good game,” Howard acknowledged. “He plays aggressive all the time and that’s just the way he plays basketball. It can’t be one person playing aggressive and the other four just being lackadaisical about things and not taking everything, not giving 110 in every play. It’s something we’re going to continue to work on and we’ll get better at.”

The Wildcats began to press and again tied the game up at 52, but San Marcos was able to run away with a 10-0 run to go up 62-52.

The closest Waelder got was a 68-63 lead with 21 seconds left, but the Wildcats were unable to score again as they sent the Panthers to the free-throw line a few times, ending the game at 70-63.

“I mean all night we played catch up, we played from behind but my guys never gave up,” Howard said. “So I know the heart is there we just got to put it all together and play four quarters of basketball and we’ll be fine.”

Despite Waelder fielding mostly freshmen and sophomores, Howard did not want to use youth as an excuse for the slow start. Though he wasn’t sure whether it was youth or just early season rust, the head coach did mention that they need to get back to play Waelder Wildcat basketball soon to have some success.

“We’re young but we’re not going to use that as an excuse,” he said, “I mean they’ve been playing basketball all their lives. We know as a team how to pass the ball without it being deflected so we’re not going to use our youth as an excuse.”

The Wildcats are in tournament play at the Little River Academy Bumblebee Tournament. Results from yesterday’s game were unavailable before press time.