DENNIS SILVA II | STAFF WRITER
Grulla’s second bi-district championship in four years didn’t come easily.
The Gators rallied from a 21-point deficit in the second quarter and held La Vernia scoreless in the second half Saturday afternoon, scoring 42 unanswered points in earning a 49-28 Class 4A bi-district playoff win in Alice.
The win marked the fifth in a row for Grulla, which plays China Spring in the area round Friday at Lehnhoff Stadium in Schertz, which is outside of San Antonio. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m.
Grulla (7-4) was down 28-7 early in the second quarter before closing it to 28-16 by halftime.
“We started sluggish,” Grulla coach Abel Gonzalez III said. “I felt after a big win for us last week (a district-title clinching win against La Feria), I thought that might have happened. It did. We got some momentum in the second quarter, closed the gap, and then we get the ball first in the second half. At that point, we felt good. Our senior leadership took over.”
Grulla made defensive adjustments to counter one-dimensional La Vernia, which relied solely on the run game. The Gators mixed and matched alignments and stopped over pursuing on La Vernia’s tosses. That enabled for better positioning for tackles.
Offensively, Grulla was dynamic with its own ground game. Fabian Anzaldua scored three touchdowns, and Dillen Salinas, Miguel Pena and Diego Mata each scored one TD.
The Gators only punted once in the second half.
“They ran a lot of man coverage and we ran the ball,” Gonzalez said. “We ran it well, and we felt going in we would do that with our outside jet sweeps and we executed. We blocked excellent and we controlled the ball.”