McHi overpowers Brownsville Rivera in season opener

McALLEN  — The defending District 30-5A champion McAllen High Bulldogs picked up right where they left off as they dominated Brownsville Rivera 78-49 in their season opener Tuesday night at the McHi gym.

Too much height in the Bulldogs’ starting frontline proved to be the difference as they outrebounded the Raiders 16-5 in the first quarter. Senior low post standout J.J. Avila led McHi with 16 points, six boards and three blocks. His sidekick down low, Ryan Evans, pitched in with 15 while snatching five rebounds and three blocks.

“I thought our big guys played big,” McHi coach Roy Swift said. “When they would break our defense with penetration our bigs were there for some key blocks. I thought we rebounded the ball well also.”

Crisp ball movement throughout the game had the Raiders on their heels the whole night. Crosscourt passes galore broke the Raiders’ pressure, giving the Bulldogs easy lay-ups. Swift admits this year one of his team’s goals is to share the ball more in order to make the game easier. Almost every time a Bulldogs player had the ball it would be gone in less than a couple of seconds.

“We talked about the ability of making plays,” Swift said. “If you can’t make one give it to someone else who can and tonight they fed off of that real well.”

Avila, who scored 10 of the Bulldogs’ first 12 points, was a force on both sides of the court. The 6-foot-6 post admits that even with two starters out of the lineup his team showed resiliency in the win, especially down in the paint.

“Hopefully we can make our presence felt with defense this year. We are pretty tall and we can move pretty well,” Avila said.

The game was decided in the first quarter for all intents and purposes as the Bulldogs outscored the Raiders 25-11 thanks to their stingy man-to-man defense that produced five turnovers.

Raiders guard Aaron Alaniz netted a game-high 18 points in the loss.