Hawks ground Falcons

HARLINGEN — In the 1978 movie "Animal House", John Belushi's character John Blutarsky said it best; "Nothing is over 'till we decide it is."

Harlingen South proved that point Tuesday night as they overcame a 15-point deficit with 4:13 left in the contest and went on a ferocious 19-3 run to seal the victory 56-55 over Los Fresnos.

"Our kids have a lot of fight in them and they never quit," said Harlingen South head coach Brian Molina. "We fought to the very end and this was a big win for our program."

Los Fresnos (8-5) had a commanding 52-37 lead as they started out the fourth quarter going on a 14-6 run.

But South (8-9) fought back as they hit four big three-pointers and cut the lead to eight with 2:53 left in the contest.

The Hawks took the lead 56-54 as Mark Villegas nailed a three with 18 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

Los Fresnos had a chance to tie it up as Mark Burnias went to the line shooting two with 12 seconds left.

However, hit hit one of them and the Falcons could not hit the winning shot as time expired.

"During a time out in the fourth quarter, I told the kids to believe in the game and to fight back one possession at a time," said Molina. "In fact, we were down 22 to Sharyland in last week's tournament and ended up losing by three.

"We have been down in quite a few games this year and ended up fighting back. But we knew we would end up getting one in our favor and tonight we did it."

Los Fresnos controlled the majority of the first half as they were aggressive underneath the basket and hit some key three's as they took a 23-17 lead into the half.

The Falcons continued to dominate as they extended their lead to 34-21 with 3:12 left in the third quarter.

Harlingen South cut the lead to seven at the end of the third quarter as they went on a 10-4 run.

One big problem Molina hopes to fix is nailing the free- throws. The Hawks shot an abysmal 23 percent (5-21)from the free-throw line.

"We are not going to win games like this if we can't nail our free-throw shots," said Molina. "But fortunately we made the ones that count."