ROY HESS | STAFF WRITER
PORT ISABEL — With a new group of players displaying their football skills, the Port Isabel Tarpons are recording the same kind of winning results that the team’s fans have become accustomed to seeing.
Thanks to a strong second half after leading only 10-7 at intermission, the Tarpons got things rolling during the final two quarters to improve to 3-0 with a 38-17 non-district victory at home Friday against the Hidalgo Pirates (1-2).
“I was real proud of our kids in the second half,” Tarpons coach Monty Stumbaugh said. “It was 10-7 at halftime, and it was anybody’s game.
“We told our guys (at intermission) that we were going to come out and do what we do, and they responded well,” Stumbaugh added, “We were able to run the football and we started playing good defense (just) like we were doing before, so I was real proud of the effort, especially in the second half.”
It was a good night for the Tarpons’ running back corps as seven of them touched the ball. They were led by J.J. Gonzalez and Alex De Los Santos, who rushed for 142 and 102 yards, respectively. Each scored a touchdown.
Gonzalez’s TD came on a 19-yard scamper around left end at the 6:30 mark of the third quarter to make it 17-7 following Misael Nava’s extra-point kick.
“This was a big win,” Gonzalez said. “We needed to put a statement on the board, and we did as a team. It was a good night for the running backs, but it was because of our line. The line did a fantastic job of blocking. Everyone did his job and we got after it.”
De Los Santos broke loose for a 76-yard scoring run with 9:34 remaining in the final period. He had run about 10 yards on the play when the ball suddenly came out of his hands. But he instinctively scooped it up on the bounce and sprinted the rest of the way down the sideline to the end zone to boost his team’s lead to 24-10 after another Nava kick.
The Tarpons added two more TDs down the stretch to lead 38-10 before an 82-yard passing score from Hidalgo QB Peter Quiroz to Eluid Castillo with 1:16 left.
The game began with Port Isabel taking a 10-0 first-quarter advantage on a 23-yard field goal by Nava and a 2-yard run by John Ray Martinez.
Hidalgo’s Castillo recovered a Port Isabel fumble in the end zone on the final play of the opening period to account for the Pirates’ first score to make it 10-7. Neither team scored during the second quarter.
Between the second-half TD runs by J.J. Gonzalez and De Los Santos, Hidalgo’s Eladio Bermudez booted a 20-yard field goal with 2:24 showing on the clock during the third period, closing the gap to 17-10.
After De Los Santos made it 24-10 with his long scoring run, Tarpons defender Pedro Gonzalez pounced on a loose ball in the end zone for a TD on a play when a high snap sailed over the head of Quiroz at the 5:49 mark of the final period, giving Port Isabel a 31-10 edge following the fumble recovery for a score.
Port Isabel tallied its final TD when reserve running back Joel Rodriguez III darted 54 yards to the end zone with 1:35 to play. That score came just seconds before Castillo grabbed a pass from Quiroz that was tipped by a defender and raced in to score to completed an 82-yard catch-and-run play with 1:16 remaining. It allowed the Pirates to pull to within 38-17.
Both teams were coming off last week’s non-district victories. The Tarpons won at home 36-27 against Rio Grande City, while the Pirates triumphed 47-13 at Progreso.
Non-district action continues next Friday as Port Isabel goes to Valley View, while Hidalgo will be at home against Rio Hondo.
Port Isabel won 41-0 at Hidalgo last season when the two teams were members of District 32-3A. They’re each in different Class 4A districts this year with new sets of conference opponents.