By ROY HESS | Staff Writer
SAN JUAN — It’s official. The Pace Vikings are on a roll.
They’re winning, even if they have to play some late-night football and fend off a determined opponent.
The Vikings broke out of a 21-21 halftime tie to capture their fourth straight victory by defeating the PSJA Memorial Wolverines 48-32 on a rainy Friday night at PSJA Stadium.
The start of the game was delayed 1 hour, 20 minutes due to the threat of lightning in the area. Drizzle fell at times during the contest, but there was no threat of lightning once the game kicked off.
The contest didn’t end until a few minutes before midnight.
The Vikings were up 14-0 early in the game, but the Wolverines never gave up trying to come back.
The District 16-5A Division I win improved the Vikings to 4-1 on the season and 4-0 in conference action. PSJA Memorial slipped to 0-5 and 0-4.
“I said before that PSJA Memorial’s (winless) record doesn’t indicate how good they are,” Pace coach Danny Pardo said. “They made some big plays against us, including on special teams.
“I tend to get a little more involved coaching our defense, and we had not allowed this many points before (so far this season), so it hurt,” Pardo added. “I’m a little disappointed in that. We have to really work on what we need to correct.
“Like I told the team, ‘It’s an ugly win, but that’s always better than a loss.’ We made too many crucial mistakes, but don’t get me wrong, PSJA Memorial played well and made some big plays. All credit goes to them. It wasn’t that we just played bad. Our opponent made us play bad, so credit PSJA Memorial.”
Pace led 14-7 after one quarter and wound up in the 21-21 deadlock at intermission. The Vikings took a 28-24 advantage into the final period.
Jose Banda, Pace’s sophomore quarterback, enjoyed a standout night by throwing four touchdown passes and rushing for two more scores.
During the first half, he threw TD passes of 9 and 8 yards to Juan Jimenez and another one of 14 yards to Brandon Zapata. During the second half, Banda recorded rushing TDs of 10 and 15 yards while throwing a 56-yard scoring bomb to Carlos Pulido.
There were big plays for both sides. The Wolverines’ Joaquin Sanchez returned a Pace kickoff 95 yards to the end zone in the first quarter to pull his team to within 14-7.
During the second period, the Wolverines’ Micheal Munoz caught a 52-yard scoring bomb from QB Orlando Munoz with 1:13 showing until the half to create the 21-21 intermission score.
Another big play for the Wolverines happened when Tavis Sain caught a 49-yard scoring pass from backup QB Alex Leyva with 8:05 left to make it 42-32.
Hector Salazar sealed the win for Pace by intercepting a Leyva pass and returning it 69 yards to the end zone for a pick-six with 14.9 seconds remaining to account for the final score after the extra point was blocked.
The only loss for the Vikings so far this season was a non-district 20-17 overtime setback on Aug. 31 at Sharyland High in a season opener.
It was Pace’s second straight victory at PSJA Stadium during as many weeks. The Vikings defeated PSJA Southwest 19-7 at PSJA Stadium one week ago.
The Wolverines were coming off last week’s 44-24 setback in Brownsville against Brownsville Veterans Memorial.
District 16-5A Division competition continues next week. Pace plays against La Joya Palmview on Thursday at Sams Memorial Stadium. PSJA Memorial plays at Rio Grande City on Friday.