By MARK MOLINA
Staff Writer
HARLINGEN — After a tough preseason schedule, the 1-2 Harlingen South Hawks’ road doesn’t get any smoother as they open District 32-6A play against the Brownsville Veterans Memorial Chargers this Friday night at Boggus Stadium in Harlingen.
Before going into their bye week, the Hawks were coming off two blowout losses to Edinburg Vela and Weslaco East.
Now, the Hawks hope that these two weeks of practice has prepared them for what’s ahead.
“We’re a young team and we’re still learning. We’ve really made some improvements in the last two weeks—we’re a much better football team than we were two weeks ago,” Wilson said. “We saw a lot of small mistakes that lead to big problems, but we’ve corrected some of those. We’ve moved some people around and the more time we spend with these first-year guys with the varsity they keep getting better and better. It’s not so much of a review, it’s a learning process.”
Coming into this week’s match, the Chargers are 2-1 and were winners of their last two games, downing PSJA North 30-23 and Edinburg 41-0 before the break.
In the process the Chargers have become the top team in total offense and total defense early among the 32-6A teams.
This week looks to be another favorable match for the Chargers as they look to add to their District-best rushing total of 889 yard against a Hawks defense that has given up 708 yards on the ground in three games.
That’s good for sixth best in 32-6A and it gets tougher as Brownsville Memorial’s Derrick Rodriguez, who is averaging 6.4 yards a carry, looks to have another solid outing.
Helping that cause will be the return of starting left tackle Mario Gomez, who missed the Chargers’ last game due to injury.
Also coming back from an injury is corner back Felipe Flores, making the Chargers’ offense and defense that much better coming off the bye week.
Still, Charger head coach isn’t sleeping on the Hawks this week.
“I see our opener versus South as an exciting team to start district with. They are coached extremely well in all phases by Coach Wilson and staff,” Charger head coach David Cantu told the Brownsville Herald this week. “They will force us to play near error-free football to come out on top.”
As far as the home team is concerned, the Hawks will have to come out of their recent slump in which they have struggled offensively, putting up just 17 points in their last two games, one of which was a 30-0 shutout at the hands of Weslaco East.
“A lot of it is the match ups. The two programs (Vela and Weslaco East) are now both 4-0,” Wilson said. “So they had a lot to do with us not looking good in all aspects of the game, but I hope those games were a learning process that will benefit our team in the long run.”
South, however, is certainly capable of moving the ball with a balanced offensive attack led by the district’s third-best passer in junior Jimmy Morton and running back Steven Rodriguez, who has three rushing scores this season for the Hawks.
However, the Hawks have scored just three points in their last seven quarters of action.
For the Hawks to have a shot in this game, Wilson feels they will have to play near-flawless football.
“We’re going to have to play our best game to slow down Veterans and score some points; they’re really good. They were good last year and they have a majority of those guys back this year,” Wilson said. “We have to play a clean and hard-fought ball game. It’s a new season with district and we need to escape the slump.”