By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
Football coaches set game plans to win every game. That doesn’t always work out that way in the end, but a loss is still a loss.
But it doesn’t have to define a season.
Only two District 32-6A schools finished Week 1 with an unblemished record — San Benito and Harlingen South — and another, Harlingen High, didn’t play as its season begins this week against San Antonio Reagan.
Hanna and Lopez weren’t able to keep up offensively, and Rivera, Los Fresnos and Brownsville Veterans Memorial weren’t able to sustain its earlier leads during Week 1 games. Nonetheless, coaches weren’t daunted by the loss to open the season.
Rivera used an aggressive defense to force two early fumbles and build a quick 14-0 lead. But its own miscues on special teams late in the first half resulted in two touchdowns that negated the lead, changed the momentum and cost them a chance at a win.
“I’m proud of our guys, we played well, but made some mistakes,” Rivera coach Tom Chavez said. “We gave them two easy touchdowns, that’s 12 points and the difference right there. We just have to come together, continue to work together as a team and keep working. We’ll get there little by little.”
Brownsville Veterans held on to a 10-point lead late in the third quarter before Donna High returned the ensuing kickoff to the Chargers’ 10-yard line. And with the aid of a few Chargers turnovers, Donna High completed the comeback.
“We had three key turnovers, and that ends up being the story of the game,” Brownsville Veterans coach David Cantu said. “The effort was outstanding by the kids. My hat goes off to Donna, they really are a good football team.”
Cantu continued, “We just came up short, but it was a fantastic high school game. Just an awesome effort by both teams, but we just ran out of time.”
Los Fresnos also felt the sting of a comeback. The Falcons opened up a 19-point lead early in the third quarter only to see it slowly fade during the next quarter and a half. Edinburg North took advantage of four Los Fresnos second-half turnovers.
The Cougars used clutch kicking performance by Diego Sanchez (3 for 3 on field goals) to take their first lead on a 33-yarder with nine seconds remaining in the game. It stunned the Falcons home crowd and their coach as well.
“It started rolling downhill, it was just hard to get that momentum swinging (back),” Los Fresnos coach Clint Finley said. “You have to give them credit, they played hard, never quit. I don’t think our guys did either, we just had too many mistakes in the second half.”
Finley, like the others, wouldn’t let the Week 1 loss dictate the season’s outlook.
“We’re going to have a good football team, there’s no question in my mind,” he said. “Its just a matter of getting a little experience and maturing. We’ll be all right.”
FIRST GREYHOUNDS WIN
San Benito coach Dan Gomez started out the season on a high-note, earning his first victory with San Benito and enjoying a dominating performance in the process. San Benito scored early and often en route to a 53-7 win.
San Benito pulled a surprise onside kick — which it recovered to start the game — blocked a punt to set up a score, an interception set up yet another and later the Greyhounds returned a kickoff for another touchdown.
“The kids were ready to play tonight even with that rain stoppage,” Gomez said Friday night. “The kids were focused early, but we lost it there in the second half. We got some other guys some PT and that’s important, but we expect our 2s to be as good as our 1s, so we’ll come back to work (Saturday) and get after it.”
Andrew Crum covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6629 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @andrewmcrum.