After three straight losses to the District 12-2A frontrunners, Meridian Yellowjackets must win final two games to keep playoff hopes alive
With two games remaining in the 2024-25 Texas high school boys basketball regular season, the Meridian Yellowjackets find themselves with their backs against the wall and no room to stumble. Coming off four straight losses to the District 12-2A frontrunners, the Jackets must rediscover their winning combination.
Currently sitting in sixth place, the Jackets (3-7 in district, 15-8 overall) close out the regular season with back-to-back road games, visiting the fifth place Rio Vista Eagles (4-5, 12-13) at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday before traveling to Valley Mills to take on the Bosque County arch-rival Eagles (0-10, 1-21) in the finale at 7:15 p.m. Friday before getting an open date on the final day of the season Feb. 11.
In the meantime, Meridian needs the fourth place Itasca Wampus Cats (5-5, 19-10) to lose their final two games against the second place Crawford Pirates (6-3, 14-8) Tuesday night and league-leading Waco Rapoport (9-0, 17-1) on Friday. Additionally, Rio Vista needs to drop two of their final three tilts against Meridian, Bosqueville (6-3, 19-5) and Crawford.
Struggling to find the back of the net during the second round of district, Meridian’s cold hand continued in a crucial 57-23 road loss to Itasca last Tuesday night. While shooting only 20 percent from the field, the Jackets found themselves in a 12-point deficit by halftime. In the meantime, the Wampus Cats took advantage of 20 Meridian turnovers to capitalized and outscore the Jackets, 16-2, on their way to an overwhelming and clutch win.
“Itasca played the best I have seen them play all year,” Meridian boys basketball head coach Grant Schur said. “We didn’t play particularly well, but hats off to them. They played really well and played like a team that had to win.
“We didn’t come out with that same type of energy, and I’ll take the blame for that. We didn’t have the same type of energy that we normally play with either, and we couldn’t get shots to fall. That has been kind of a trend for us here in the second half of the season. We’ve been inconsistent shooting the ball. And in this district, off-nights are hard to overcome.”
Senior Alex Rodriguez led the Jackets with 11 points while Itasca shut down Meridian’s leading scorer, sophomore Josh Nunez, limiting him to a season-low two points along with seven rebounds and two assists. Sophomore Guillermo Ortiz tossed in six points and came up with three steals.
With a dominating performance last Friday night, Waco Rapoport ran away with a convincing 84-47 victory over Meridian to remain undefeated and clinch the district title.
“Rapoport is hands down the best team in the district, and one of the best teams in the region,” Schur said. “That’s just a very tough matchup for us with their size, athleticism and shooting. Honestly, I didn’t think we played that bad. We had a lot of really good looks offensively and did some good things on both ends.”
By sinking three three-point shots in the losing effort, senior Matty Jones led the Jackets with 11 points, followed by Rodriguez and junior D’Marcus Garcia with 10 each, while junior Garrett Pope tossed in six.
“We still need to learn how to not let our opponent dictate the tempo of the game,” Schur said. “We had times where we handled that well, and stretches where we didn’t. But that’s part of the learning experience.”
Despite losing three straight games against the three District 12-2A frontrunners, the Jackets remain in the postseason hunt.
“For the playoffs, we are still in good shape,” Schur said. “But we have a tough road ahead. We need to beat Rio Vista and Valley Mills again. Tough part is both of those are on the road.”
Opening up Meridian’s run through the district’s best, the Bosqueville handed the Jackets a convincing 67-47 road loss. Bosqueville jumped out to a commanding 23-11 first quarter lead before the Jackets battled back in the second period. But the Bulldogs outscored the Jackets, 19-6, in the third to put the game away.
“Bosqueville is a really tough matchup for us,” Schur said. “They have a lot height that we just don’t matchup to, and they shot the ball really well. That being said, we have to do a better job of playing at a high level consistently in games.”
Nunez tossed in a game-high 22 points in the losing effort, followed by Rodriguez with 11 points and four steals. S Jones dished out a team-high five assists, while Ortiz came up with a team-high five steals and delivered three assists.
“We let them jump out to a big a lead, and we did a good job of not panicking and slowly chipping away at it,” Schur said. “Coming out of halftime, we let it get back up a little before cutting it back down to nine early in the third. After we got it down to nine, we just couldn’t maintain it and let it get out of hand.”
After Crawford battled to a one-point lead in the first quarter, the Pirates opened up a 25-18 advantage by halftime. Struggling to find the net continued into the third quarter for the Jackets as the Pirates began to pull away for the convincing 18-point victory.
In the loss to Crawford, Nunez led the Jackets with 10 points, followed by Pope with seven points and five rebounds, while Ortiz tossed in six points, and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds and five steals. Senior Jesus Martinez also scored six points, while Rodriguez dished out five assists and came up with three steals
“Crawford is just a well-rounded team,” Schur said. “I didn’t think we played all that bad. Just a lot like Bosqueville, we didn’t play at our highest level for four quarters. And against teams like that, you can’t do that. We had some guys get into foul trouble and that really hurt as well.”
Photos by SIMONE WICHERS-VOSS
©2025 Southern Cross Creative, LLP. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.