By ROY HESS | The Brownsville Herald
LA FERIA — The St. Joseph Academy Bloodhounds opened their football scrimmage season against a tough opponent on the road Friday considering it was the defending District 16-4A Division I co-champion La Feria Lions.
The Bloodhounds are retooling their team following the graduation of quarterback Kai Money, a four-year starter.
La Feria returns seven starters on offense and seven on defense from a 6-4 ballclub.
SJA coach Tino Villarreal said the Lions are a team playing “in mid-season form.”
The Lions showed it by dominating Friday’s scrimmage before their home fans.
They won the first half’s controled portion of the scrimmage by outscoring SJA five times to one before triumphing in the second half played with game conditions 28-7.
Melik Kauachi, a running back for the Bloodhounds, tallied both of the touchdowns for his team on runs of 6 and 1 yards, one score during each half.
“First, hats off to La Feria,” Villarreal said. “They’ve got a lot of experienced numbers and they’re in mid-season form.
“We schedule scrimmages like these because that’s what makes us better,” Villarreal added. “La Feria has high hopes for its season and we have high hopes for our season as well. Today, we had some bright moments, but we showed our youth. That’s OK. It’s part of the growing pains we have to go through.”
The Bloodhounds are coming off a 7-5 season and having captured a district championship in football for the first time in more than 30 years.
But many of the SJA players are new this season.
“It’s just a matter of piecing things together for us and it takes time,” Villarreal said.
The Bloodhounds will play their second scrimmage next Thursday at 4:30 p.m. at Canales Field against Porter.
La Feria comes to Brownsville next Thursday to play its second scrimmage at Lopez.