Eldorado girls defend home court against Ozona in 7-2A basketball battle

ELDORADO — Still two games behind most of the rest of the district in terms of games played due to COVID postponements, the Eldorado High School girls basketball team proved it's not out of the conversation for the District 7-2A trophy.

The host Lady Eagles jumped on top of Ozona early in the first quarter Tuesday and held on as the Lady Lions tried to claw back, giving Eldorado the season sweep with a 35-30 win.

With the win, Eldorado cooled off a red-hot Ozona squad that had won its last four after opening district play with a 41-31 loss at home to the Lady Eagles.

Eldorado, meanwhile, still needs to make up the two games and has just one loss, a 38-30 setback to Christoval, who was eyeing the outcome of this game after the Lady Cougars' game with Fort Hancock was postponed.

One makeup game is scheduled for Wednesday against Wink in Eldorado. The Lady Eagles travel to Fort Hancock on Feb. 5 for the second makeup.

Robbi Martinez and the Lady Eagles harassed the Lady Lions in the first half, building a 22-9 lead after holding Ozona to just two points in the second quarter.

Ozona got as close as five points in its comeback attempt but couldn't close the gap any further.

Eldorado head coach Jimmy Canchola said the strategy he has been fine-tuning since he took over the program at the beginning of the season all came together for the Lady Eagles against Ozona.

"It's something that has progressed throughout the year," said Canchola, who came to Eldorado from George West. "We implemented early on and as the season went on, we felt a little bit more comfortable running it. We work on it in practice every single day. It's about personnel and adjusting and trying to put people in the right places."

Martinez, who finished with 22 points, was in the right place to disrupt Ozona's press break attempts. She had five points in the first quarter as the Lady Eagles had an early six-point lead but Ozona fought back to pull within 9-7 going into the second quarter.

She hit a 3-point goal during Eldorado's 13-2 run and also hit a layup and drew two fouls on layups, connecting on two of four free throw attempts. Eldorado's Logan Prater, Jessica Garcia and Naomi Martinez also each hit a layup in the second quarter off Lady Lion turnovers.

"At that point, we were getting a lot of tips and deflections and easy layups," Canchola said. "That was huge, and we increased the lead, because in the fourth, they turned up the defensive pressure and at that point, if you turn it over, it's a layup to the other end."

Ozona head coach Chad Myers, who is in his second year leading the program, said the Eldorado pressure was a little different than what he expected and it kept his team off-balance all night.

"We kind of knew what they were going to do but they got into a different press and we just shot ourselves in the foot in the first half, freaked out," said Myers. "We got better in the second half, calmed down and played our game. We changed our defense and went full-court man, because sometimes you have to. We had a chance but we missed free throws when we needed to."

The Lady Lions missed four free throws in the fourth quarter, which could have cut the gap to one point, and Eldorado hauled in a few key rebounds down the stretch.

"We've been pretty good, free-throw percentage-wise," Myers said. "We were against Christoval and the last four games. But we weren't consistent tonight. It was one of those games. We need to learn from it and move on. We've had nine or 10 games this year that we lost by five points or less. So those are things we need to work on."

Mia Davidson and Vale Garza each scored eight points to lead the Lady Lions. Claire Bean added seven.

Ozona must rebound at Fort Hancock on Friday. The last time Fort Hancock played was Ozona's first district win.

Eldorado improved to 17-7 overall and 3-1 in district play. Ozona, which has not had any postponements, fell to 14-14, 4-2.

Eldorado boys 35, Ozona 22

Eldorado jumped out to a big lead in the boys game as well.

The Eagles had a balanced scoring attack against the Lions. Korbin Covarrubiaz scored nine points while Santiago Hernandez and Cooper Meador each scored eight.

Meador hauled in 12 rebounds for the Eagles while Covarrubiaz had 11.

Damian Romo also added seven rebounds, five assists and four points.

Eldorado (8-9, 3-1) also had a postponement with Fort Hancock, but that game was made up last Thursday, with the Eagles winning 46-43. Ozona fell to 5-17, 1-3.

This story will be updated

Amy McDaniel is a multimedia sports journalist. Send news tips to amy.mcdaniel@gosanangelo.com. Consider supporting West Texas journalism with a subscription to GoSanAngelo.com.

This article originally appeared on San Angelo Standard-Times: Eldorado girls defend home court against Ozona in 7-2A hoops battle