Lady Rattlers fall to defending state champion Clark

SPORTS EDITOR

The Lady Rattlers saw their season come to an end as San Marcos fell to the defending 6A state champions in the San Antonio Clark Cougars 54-36.

San Marcos finishes the season with a 20-12 overall record while qualifying for the playoffs for the first time since the 2021-2022 season under third year Head Coach Jermaine Ervin.

“I was proud of our girls,” Ervin said. “The first half we were out of character. The nostalgia and the lights being this bright playing in the playoffs had us nervous, catching our breath and it was hard to hear in that realm of the game.”

The Lady Rattlers not only had the tough task of playing against the state champs but also guarding one of the best high school players in the nation in Arianna Roberson who is currently ranked No. 19 overall in ESPN’s High School recruiting rankings. She is currently committed to play at Duke Unversity.

“She is an excellent talent,” Ervin said. “She can play the game. [Clark] has some really good girls who are playoff driven, state championship driven.

San Marcos found themselves in a hole early as Clark entered the second quarter with a 16-6 lead.

Despite the Lady Rattlers best efforts in the second quarter, San Marcos was unable to put a significant dent in the Cougars deficit.

Two free throws by sophomore forward Azariah Fennell cut Clark’s lead down to 29-17, but a buzzer-beating threepoint play by the Cougars pushed their lead out to 32-17.

One of the problems the Lady Rattlers faced was adjusting to the speed and energy of the playoff, which was vastly different than a regular season game as many of the players on San Marcos were playing in their first playoff game.

“Because I have a young team, I told them that this game was going to be different,” Ervin said. “We got done with the Super Bowl, a lot of people talk about when you [play] in the Super Bowl, the game is a lot faster and you have trouble catching your breath. They did a good job adjusting to that. … I wished that we had that last minute in the second quarter when we were down 14 and we had a chance to cut it down 12.”

The Lady Rattlers came out refocused in the second half having adjusted to the playoff environment.

San Marcos held Clark to just 13 points in the third quarter and eight points in the fourth quarter as the Lady Rattlers defensive play created problems for the Cougars.

“The second half I thought we settled in,” Ervin said. “We gave up 33 points in the first half, but in the second half we only gave up 21. We did a better job of settling in and mudding up the game a little bit. I was proud of the girls for responding to the second half adjustments and what we needed to do defensively.”

A major adjustment the Lady Rattlers made was changing their defensive strategy to more of a zone defense to poke and prod the Clark ball handlers and defend better against Roberson with double teams.

“The biggest thing we did was stop running a lot of stuff [in the first half ] and started honing in on a couple of things,” Ervin said. “Defensively we sat in our point zone a little more, which gave us a couple of opportunities to be more hectic and run in and out of traps.”

Despite San Marcos defensive efforts and holding the Cougars to just 21 second half points, it wasn’t enough as Clark defeated the Lady Rattlers 54-36.

But the defeat was not a defining moment for the Lady Rattlers, who improved from last season.

“Last year we were not here,” Ervin said. “This year, they are legitimately better. The first game of the season we were a little bit raw, but we played an energetic style of basketball that’s not going to be pretty all the time. When we get on the floor, start cheering for each other and make energetic plays, it sets a fire as fuel.”

cmcwilliams @sanmarcosrecord.com Twitter: @ColtonBMc