NATHANIEL MATA | STAFF WRITER
For two straight weeks, the La Joya Juarez-Lincoln Huskies showed signs of being a dangerous offensive team. Both weeks, however, early leads gave way to late-game surges from their two non-district opponents.
“We did move the ball well. This past week, we had over 400 yards of offense,” Huskies coach Tommy Garcia said. “But we shot ourselves in the foot. We had some fumbles in some very critical situations that obviously didn’t help.”
Albert Martinez is leading the way on offense for the Huskies. The multipurpose back has 554 total yards (367 rushing, 187 receiving) and seven touchdowns on the young season. The issue is, no other player on the team has crossed the goal line.
In Week 1, Juarez-Lincoln scored three first-half touchdowns to take a 21-14 halftime lead against Rio Hondo, then gave up 27 unanswered to fall to the Bobcats.
In Week 2, the Huskies’ loss was a similar story. They took a 29-19 lead into the break against Sharyland Pioneer, riding high off of a Manny Briseno interception. But the Huskies didn’t score in the second half as the Diamondbacks stormed back.
“We’ve been able to move the ball and distribute the ball, but not as balanced as we want to be,” Garcia said. “We have had a lot more rushing yards than we have passing (yards). It’s what the defense has been giving us, so we’re going to take what the defense has given us.”
Juarez-Lincoln will start district play Sept. 28 against PSJA North, but the Huskies have only one more dress rehearsal before their bye week.
The Huskies are hoping for an inverse of a season ago, when they went 3-0 in non-district play and 3-2 to open the 30-6A season before fizzling out and dropping their final two games to miss the postseason.
“The kids understand that we’re a couple of points from being 2-0,” Garcia said. “We focus more on the positive as far as being able to move the ball. And on defense, we had seven turnovers in this last game. They understand that there are three phases to football: one is the non-district season, then it’s the district season and hopefully the playoffs.”