Mission Veterans Memorial had a set of goals to start the year.
Go 10-0 in the regular season. Win a district title. Advance beyond the second round of the playoffs.
The Patriots don’t have a shot at a perfect record following a non-district loss, and likely are out of the running for a District 31-5A title after losing to Sharyland High last week. Now, coach David Gilpin’s team is simply focusing on making the postseason, preferably earning a No. 2 seed.
And in what has emerged recently as another goal of sorts, the eighth-ranked Patriots are looking to avoid one thing.
“We don’t want to start (district) 0-2,” Gilpin said, “which is completely possible.”
The concern stems from a variety reasons, namely losing Santos Villarreal, the top passing quarterback in district, who sprained his right ankle last week. Also, Mission Vets (3-2, 0-1) is facing off against a Roma team at 7:30 Friday night that entered Week 6 giving up the fewest number of yards in the Valley.
But teams are hungry, no doubt, especially with Roma seeking its first-ever playoff berth, coming on the heels of a 49-10 loss to Edinburg Vela.
“Obviously it’s a setback, but it’s OK,” Roma coach Max Habecker Jr. said. “We just have to bounce back.”
The Gladiators (3-2-1, 1-1) have an opportunity this week that no other 31-5A team has had this season: facing a playoff-caliber opponent (Mission Vets) without its starting quarterback.
Habecker isn’t penciling in a win, though. Far from it.
In one quarter of action — albeit in the final period, part of it against Sharyland backups — sophomore Diego Hernandez, Villarreal’s backup, completed 14 of 18 passes for 126 yards after Villarreal went down late in the third quarter.
“He’s a solid kid,” Habecker said. “He did a good job (last week) with some pressure in his face. He’s a big kid, from what I could see in the video, with a strong arm. That complements their offense.”
After losing last week, Gilpin conceded the district title to Sharyland, which beat Edinburg Vela the week prior, pointing to the mathematical hurdles teams would have to overcome to dethrone the top-ranked Rattlers, who have already faced arguably the toughest competition in their district.
“The chances of them losing two games (this season) are very slim,” Gilpin said. “We understand the district championship is out of reach. We just have to go to the next level now. That’s the way we’re going to approach it.”
The next stage for the Patriots is trying to keep things afloat while Villarreal sits out. While Gilpin hasn’t set a timetable for his return, the quarterback was hopeful he could return in time to play Sharyland Pioneer next week.
That uncertainty draws more attention to tonight’s matchup, in which Mission Vets is still favored to win.
“There is a sense of urgency (tonight),” Gilpin said. “Roma is very capable. They can beat anybody on any given night. We’ve got to get back on the saddle and get back to work. We can’t duck our heads, feeling sorry for ourselves. Because that’s not going to get the job done against a team like Roma.
“We’ve just got to go out there and play football. Show some character and bounce back from adversity, and then we’ll be in the middle of things. That’s the agenda.”
Habecker insists there was no fingering-pointing following their biggest of the year, in which they surrendered more points in one game (49) than they had in their previous five combined (40).
Instead, the Gladiators coach took a glass-half-full approach saying, “I always feel like we learn more from losses than wins, because it makes you go back to the drawing board and see what you did wrong. When you look at a game like that, it makes you really, really be a lot more detailed because nobody likes to lose like that.
“It was tough. But we’ll be prepared (tonight).”