By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
The Lopez offense continues to get better and it showed against Donna High.
Quarterback Alex Ramirez threw three touchdown passes — two to Johnny Ibarra — and the Lobos scored 30 straight points at one point to take a lead they’d never relinquish in a 49-26 win over the Redskins in a District 32-5A game Saturday night in Week 7 at Sams Memorial Stadium.
“I want to thank my offensive line, they did a heck of a job, and my receivers have been working hard too,” Ramirez said. “They make me look good.”
Ramirez completed six passes for 69 yards and had 30 yards rushing. Lopez running back Ivan Olivo led the ground attack with 98 yards and three scores, including two in the first half, and Ibarra had three catches for 56 yards and two touchdowns as the Lopez offense rolled up the points against Donna High (1-5, 0-3). The Lobos (5-1, 3-0) finished with 331 yards of offense on the night.
“We’re multi-dimension, so (Saturday) we had to attack the vertical game,” Lopez coach Jason Starkey said. “I give Donna a lot of praise with their front seven for stopping our run. I thought our quarterbacks and receivers did a good job attacking them vertically. We had some matchups we liked, and we adjusted our personnel and attacked accordingly.”
The Lobos’ defense did its part too; it forced three fumbles, had six sacks and scored a safety with one of those sacks by Lorenzo Uresti along the way.
Lopez got on the board early in the opening quarter. After blocking a Donna High punt, the Lobos got the ball at the Redskins 6-yard line. Two plays later, Olivo ran it in for a touchdown and a 6-0 lead.
Donna High took control with a pair of touchdowns on back-to-back drives. Noel Perez scored on a 4-yard run and Hector Guerrero found pay dirt after a 5-yard run to give the Redskins a 12-6 advantage.
Then Lopez found its offensive groove. Alex Ramirez found Leo Alaniz with a 2-yard pass for a touchdown with 1:23 left in the first and a 13-12 advantage.
In the second quarter, after the Uresti safety, Ramirez hit Johnny Ibarra on a 4-yard strike for a score and Olivo dove into the end zone to finish a 17-yard run and give the Lopez a 29-12 advantage at the break.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries, so we have kids going both ways,” Donna High coach Ramiro Leal said. “We don’t have a lot of continuity, right now we’re struggling. I’m not making excuses, we’re asking the kids to play as hard as they can play, but it’s hard to get that continuity going.”
After a scoreless third quarter, Olivo scored his third touchdown to open the fourth quarter and a give the Lobos a 36-12 lead before Donna High scored a pair of touchdowns. Eliseo Alvarado broke free for a 75-yard dash and later Guerrero hit Anthony Compean on an 80-yard catch and run for another score, but it couldn’t make up the deficit.
Lopez sealed the victory with a 51-yard run for a touchdown by Jose Echavarria midway through the final quarter and Ramirez’s second touchdown pass to Ibarra, a 21-yard pass play with a minute left in the game.
“They’re a very good ball club and they made the plays, hats off to them,” Leal said. “I can only ask our kids to give us their best effort and they did.”
The win kept Lopez unbeaten in district play, but its focus will soon change to its Week 8 opponent. Starkey was already getting mentally prepared for the matchup and hoped to get the Lobos’ fans excited too.
“It feels really good (to get the win),” he said. “I’m ultra excited about next week’s opponent. We play a very good Brownsville Veterans coming off an amazing win at Edcouch-Elsa … those guys are playing at a high level right now.
“I challenge the Lopez fans and the Southmost community to come out next week and fill this stadium … I know they will.”
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.