By ROY HESS | THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD
The showdown of the year in District 32-5A boys soccer came Tuesday at Sams Memorial Stadium as Lopez played Brownsville Veterans Memorial.
The Lobos scored just a minute and a half into the match and wound up winning 3-1.
The victory puts Lopez in the district lead with a 10-1 record and 30 points, while Brownsville Veterans slipped to second place with a 10-1 record and 29 points.
“I saw a game with a plethora of scoring opportunities on both sides,” Lopez coach Amadeo Escandon said. “They have a powerful offensive arsenal and so do we, so it was going to come down to capitalizing on those opportunities.”
The Brownsville Veterans girls won the nightcap of the 32-5A doubleheader at Sams with a 3-0 triumph over the Lady Lobos.
When the two boys teams played each other during the first round of district on Feb. 6 at Lopez, the Lobos held leads of 2-0 and 3-1. But the Chargers fought back to tie the match 3-3 by the end of regulation, and after a scoreless overtime, they emerged as the winner on penalty kicks.
The Lobos didn’t let their lead slip away this time.
Just a minute and a half into the game, Lopez’s Baltazar Cerda scored from about eight yards away after receiving a pass from the right side by teammate Jose “Chevy” Echavarria.
The Lobos’ 1-0 advantage stood until 25 minutes remained when Cerda drilled a rocket of a direct kick into the net from about 30 yards away on the left side.
Sebastian Benavides gave Lopez a 3-0 edge by dribbling in and scoring with five minutes to go.
The Chargers scored with a minute left when Diego Bernal sent the ball into the net from close range off a corner kick taken from the right side.
It was a tough night for Brownsville Veterans as the Chargers had a shot go off the crossbar twice, once during each half.
The biggest frustration for them came eight minutes into the second half when Lopez’s Angel De La Garza, a backup goalkeeper, blocked a Chargers’ penalty-kick try to keep them scoreless. A successful PK would have enabled Brownsville Veterans to tie the game 1-1.
Meanwhile, in the girls match, the Lady Chargers won for the third straight game and stayed in the thick of the playoff race with a 7-4 record and 21 points. The Lady Lobos slipped to 5-6 and 15 points. Despite the loss, the Lopez girls still have a shot at the postseason.
The Lady Chargers led 2-0 at halftime on goals by Camila Trevino and Samantha Bodden. In the second half, Bodden added her second goal of the night to help her team win going away.
“I’m pleased and proud with the way our girls are playing,” Lady Chargers coach Luis Troncoso said. “We haven’t clinched a playoff spot yet, so we just have to keep playing one game at a time. We’ve got to take it one step at a time.
“We’re facing some adversity because we’ve lost two of our seniors to injury,” Troncoso added. “We’re finding ways to play (well and win) without them. It’s a challenge. We have a tough Porter team coming up next (on Friday).”