DENNIS SILVA II | STAFF WRITER
Edinburg North coach Rene Saenz calls tonight’s opponent, Edcouch-Elsa, “explosive.” E-E coach Joe Marichalar sympathizes. When asked about the Cougars, the first word out of his mouth, too, is “explosive.”
That’s just one of many similarities between the two teams as they head into their non-district contest at 7:30 Friday at Benny Layton Sr. Memorial Stadium in Elsa. Both teams are inexperienced. Both have shown a tendency of starting games slow and finishing strong. Both are trying to establish an identity.
But here’s the biggest, and most important, difference: Edinburg North is 2-0. Edcouch-Elsa is 0-2.
“Looking before the season, yeah, (2-0) would have been surprising,” Saenz said. “If we would have been 1-1, that’s probably more realistic. But now that we’ve gotten into the playing, I don’t see immaturity. I see physical and mental mistakes on alignments, and that’s stuff that can be cleaned up. I’m happy the kids are playing as a collected group.”
The Cougars have notched their wins via game-winning daggers from kicker Diego Sanchez, the latest a 44-yard bomb in overtime last week to nip Brownsville Rivera. Saenz credits his team’s resilience amidst adversity to “never panicking” because of what’s been established by going three-rounds deep in the playoffs the last two years.
“These kids don’t have any quit in them,” Saenz said. “They expect to win ballgames around here. I don’t see any kids with their eyes wide open. These kids just play ball.”
With the running game still trying to get going, quarterback Martin Rodriguez, who is fully healed from a twisted ankle suffered last week, has ignited a strong passing game North has lacked the last few years. He threw for 259 yards and exploited one-on-one matchups with his receivers all night.
But Saenz still wants to see more from his running game, and with playmaking dynamo Matt Whitesides in the backfield the first-year coach expects that to come sooner than later.
“We’re not going to be competitive if we can’t be balanced,” Saenz said. “We want to be 60-40 running the ball. But I’m glad Martin was forced to throw the ball last week because it gave him confidence. He got it done, and now we know we can go to that if we need to.”
Marichalar, meanwhile, feels his team’s changes have to come mentally more than physically. He wants a sense of urgency, he wants an identity and he wants momentum heading into district play in two weeks.
“We challenged them the whole week about playing four quarters,” Marichalar said. “These guys are anxious to get going to show everybody the potential we know we have. This is a talented team. Once we put it together, we’re going to do well.”
The last time the Yellowjackets started 0-2 was 2009, which also happened to be the last time they missed the playoffs.
Marichalar, an Elsa native who starred as linebacker in the late ’90s, can’t even remember the last time the program started 0-3, though he was told that was in 1998, when E-E lost its first three games, went undefeated in district play and then went three rounds deep in the playoffs.
“I don’t even want to think that far. I really don’t,” he said. “These guys just have to continue to work hard. It’s been unfortunate for us so far, so, definitely, we want some positives.”