Edinburg’s Micheline Mercelita was definitely a woman amongst girls Tuesday night.

The junior netted 25 points on the night and led the Lady Bobcats to a 59-51 victory over San Benito.

“Micheline is a great player to watch and did an excellent job tonight,” Edinburg head coach Rachel Carmona said.

With the game close throughout the entire first quarter, Edinburg (2-1) started opening things up a little as they went on a 10-4 run to take a 21-12 lead with 3:54 left in the second quarter.

But San Benito (3-4) answered back as they countered with a 6-0 run –to cut the lead to one (21-20) with 1:54 left in the quarter.

Then Mercelita took over a she scored six straight points to extend the Lady Bobcats lead to 27-20 with 52 seconds left in the first half.

Mercelita did most of her damage in the second quarter as she scored 12 of Edinburg’s 16 points in the quarter and had 18 in the first half alone.

Trailing by 5 with 7:08 left in the third quarter, the Lady Hounds took their lead since early in the contest as they went on a 9-2 run to take a 35-34 lead with 2:21 left in the third quarter. Cejay Banuelos was the spark during their run as she scored seven of the nine points for the Lady Hounds and led them with 24 points on the night.

However, Edinburg wasn’t going to have any part of that as they outscored San Benito 25-16 throughout the remainder of the contest.

San Benito Clarisse Arredondo was pleased with the way her team hung in there despite having three starters out due to injuries.

“The girls have nothing to be ashamed of. They left everything on the floor tonight,” Arredondo said. “They played with pride and I am proud of the kids.

We are probably going to be without those three starters for another two weeks because I want them to completely heal up,” she added.

Getting early playing time will help the Lady Greyhounds get going early this season.

“It’s good that these girls get some platyng time because they gain tons of confidence and can step up off of the bench when we need them to,” Arredondo said.

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November 15, 2011 10:58 PM
John Cannon
Special to the Star