By NATHANIEL MATA | STAFF WRITER
EDINBURG — Athletics at Edinburg IDEA Quest is a tad unconventional, to say the least. At the charter school regarded for its academics, student-athletes and coaches make the most with what’s available.
The gym for basketball and volleyball doubles as the cafeteria, which means the student-athletes have to move the lunch tables to use the court, but the teams still hoop and spike.
The Trailblazers’ home baseball field is 20 minutes away at Edinburg Municipal Park, but the team still bats.
Soccer teams practice on a field that is too small for regulation matches, and occasionally play home games on the road. That doesn’t stop the girls soccer team from running the table with an undefeated District 31-4A record, claiming the program’s first district championship.
Quest will begin its playoff season at 7:30 p.m. Friday with a bi-district match against Rio Hondo at Hidalgo High School.
“It was an amazing feeling because we worked really hard for this,” junior Alexia Salas said. “We are lucky enough to have a field. Some other teams have a little bit more than us. They might have a bigger weight room, but we use what we have. We focus, we train. Our main goal was that, and it was just an amazing feeling.”
First place in the district was secured March 19 with a 3-2 win over Hidalgo, which had won district four consecutive years before finishing as runner-ups.
The composition of Quest’s roster is as unique as the grounds they train on.
Salas, who plays club soccer with plenty of the area’s top talent with the RGV Sharks, is the team’s tactician in the midfield. Between the pipes is a junior playing goalie in her first season competing. The green and gold make it work.
Second-year coach Teresa Gomez said people now are just beginning to learn the school takes part in athletic competition.
“When we’re playing, refs coming up to us saying, ‘What? This is IDEA? You all have sports?’ And it’s always like, ‘Well, yeah, these are kids. Ultimately, this is IDEA, but these are kids. They have the same interests,’” Gomez said. “We are based on academics, but these girls come out here everyday and work so hard to compete with schools that do get focus on athletics more.”
UIL lists Quest’s enrollment for 2018-20 realignment at 381 students, a Class 3A. Since soccer only has 6A, 5A and 4A championship, the Trailblazers are playing in a higher classification.
Senior Yannelie Rebeles is one of many multitaskers when it comes to extracurricular activites on the team. But she may reign supreme.
Outside of soccer, she’s the captain of the chess club, a part of yearbook and cheers for Quest. Gomez also doubles as the cheer coach, which can create a direct conflict at times.
“I felt like I have to put the commitment in both, but it’s hard,” Rebeles said. “Especially because our team was like, ‘This year’s the year we got to do it,’ because I’m a senior. We knew we had to do this well, so I had to dedicate more time to soccer.”
Rebeles has played soccer all four years at the school in north Edinburg. Not every season was UIL. She said they had to fight to get in and the first few years her team struggled not only to win, but to find opponents to fill out their schedule.
“Freshman year, I feel like we started off very conservative. We were very to ourselves,” Rebeles said. “We all played individually and with our clubs, but we were new to each other. We were new to all of this. No one really wanted us to play because they said, ‘What’s the use of you to play if you’re not actual competition?’”
The veteran of the team explained why this season was refreshing to put losing and shortened seasons in the past.
“It’s reflected the way we won this year because although we had those step-backs, I think that made us a stronger team,” Rebeles said. “We need to show off that we belong in this district.”
The budding program is gaining popularity, even within its own campus. Rebeles said that as the wins piled up, more students paid attention and kept up. It’s part of the reason Trailblazers volleyball player Alexa Maciel tried out for the team.
A week into practice, Maciel turned to her coach and said, “Hey, this is hard.” A few months later and the keeper has thrived.
“I’m pretty proud because I really like volleyball and I missed it a lot,” Maciel said. “And it helped me with my coordination skills. When I was younger, I used to play it but I wasn’t fully into it. Now, since in high school, it really helped me enjoy the sport and so did the team and the coaches. Everyone is just so encouraging.”
So what was the missing link to turn IDEA Quest from a program struggling to find opponents willing to play to blossoming into a team that with a bi-district win in 2018 and a district title a year later?
Look no further than the coach on the sidelines.
“She knows the game. She knows what to do. She knows where to move the players if the players are unsure in where to go,” Salas said. “Overall, the game strategy is great. Her motivation to all of us … to the new members and the old members — she just fit perfectly right in with us.”