By Mark Molina | The Brownsville Herald
With some key players returning on both sides and fresh off a 7-4 season and its first playoff berth since 2009, it’s no surprise that expectations are high for Hanna football in 2018.
The Golden Eagles are hoping to take that next step, and it starts as they play host to the McAllen Memorial Mustangs in a big Week 1 test slated for 7 p.m. tonight at Sams Memorial Stadium.
“To be able to face good, quality opponents year in and year out, district contenders, champions and teams that make playoff runs, those are the programs that are going to take your program to the next level,” Hanna coach Mark Guess said. “We want to play teams like that in order to see where you are. District 32-6A football is tough, but (McAllen Memorial’s) district is also tough. I think that the matchup is a great one for both of us.”
McAllen Memorial has had a lot of recent success, and is coming off a third consecutive district championship and a run to the area playoffs.
Still, Mustangs coach Bill Littleton expects the Golden Eagles to present a big set of challenges.
“We have all the respect in the world for Hanna,” he said. “They’re a good football team. We’ve seen them on video and they’re going to present us with problems, but we hope we can come up with a few answers to try and slow them down a little bit. I expect them to be well-coached and their skill people are really good, they play good defense, they run hard to the football and their offensive line looks good. They look like the total package from what we’ve seen on video.”
Hanna’s offensive attack will be led by the run game, as senior running back Cesar Mancias and junior Aaron Frausto return and are expected to have good years once again.
Mancias had a breakout year in 2017, rushing for 1,172 yards with 10 scores, and Frausto picked up 389 total yards and six scores primarily in the pass game.
At quarterback, Victor Campos became a threat through the air as a sophomore, throwing for 1,566 yards and 15 touchdowns. Guess said he has matured and his emergence last season has brought balance.
The main concern coming in for them will be their rebuilding offensive line.
“We’re getting better along the offensive line every day — we have to,” Guess said. “We’re not going to be able to run or throw the ball if we don’t have a good offensive line. Our skill guys are improving every day. We try to spread it around, we’re going to try and use our weapons that we have and hopefully be able to put more points on the board than the other team.”
Memorial will have to combat that attack with a young defense that returns two starters from a 2017 bunch that recovered 14 fumbles and intercepted nine passes.
Littleton sees the defense coming around slowly, but it will rely on the offense to shoulder a bulk of the load for now.
“We’re a defense in the making, we had to find all the pieces to the puzzle and we’re trying to get our kids to play Mustang defense,” he said. “We feel like our offense is going to have to carry us early in the season against a tough non-district schedule. We hope our offense can keep the ball away from opponents.”
The Mustangs have one of the more potent pair of runners in the Rio Grande Valley in junior running back Campbell Speights and senior quarterback Sean Skaugen. Speights led the team in rushing with 1,647 yards and 22 touchdowns, and Skaugen was second with 1,108 yards to spearhead an offense responsible for 66 touchdowns last season.
Hanna’s run defense, led by Gio Rivera and Brandon Esteves on the defensive line and Jose Cruz at linebacker, will have its hands full, but Guess said the entire group is ready.
“I love the attitude of our defense going into Week 1,” he said. “They accept this as a challenge. (Memorial) has at least two very good athletes that are some of the best high school football players we have in the Rio Grande Valley at quarterback and running back. It’s a great challenge for any defense when you want to try to stop the best. That’s has been the challenge all week, and we hope to try and corral them a little bit on Thursday night.”