By ROY HESS | Staff Writer
Soccer in Brownsville doesn’t take time off for Charro Days.
While others were participating in festivities around town Friday night, the Pace Lady Vikings were busy getting past a tough city opponent in the balanced District 32-5A girls soccer race.
The Lady Vikings, playing at Lopez, prevailed over the Lady Lobos 2-1 to remain leaders of the district race. They now have a little breathing room, but not too much.
Pace was coming off Tuesday’s 2-1 loss to Edcouch-Elsa in penalty kicks, so defeating the Lady Lobos was a pretty satisfying victory.
“First, more than anything, it’s the work of the team together and all the practices we’ve had (that helped us get the win),” said Pace’s Paloma Zamora, a sophomore forward/midfielder who scored the eventual game-winning goal with a little less than 20 minutes remaining. “We came (to Lopez) as a team, driven and in our formation, to find a way to win.
“This victory is very important because, if we won, we knew we would stay in first place,” Zamora added. “We are the defending district champions, and all the teams in our district are coming after us with the intention of defeating us, so this win was very important.”
Pace remains on top of the 32-5A girls standings with an 8-2 record and 25 points. Porter, a 5-0 winner over Valley View on Friday, stays in second place with an 8-2 record and 21 points. Lopez, still in playoff contention, slipped to 6-4 with 18 points.
“Lopez is a very good team, and they’re very well-coached,” Lady Vikings coach Jesus O. Villarreal said. “These games are all like this — very close — and today we won. It could have been the other way around. We’re going to celebrate because it was our turn to win.
“These games with Lopez are always good ones,” Villarreal added. “I want to give all the credit to our girls. They played their hearts out and won all the 50-50 balls. My hat’s off to our girls. They’re doing everything they can do to win. They’re playing with all their hearts.”
It was a scoreless match until three and a half minutes remained before halftime. Pace’s Marcy Garza received a pass from the right side and dribbled in on the attack to create a 1-on-1 situation with the Lady Lobos’ goalkeeper. Garza caught the goalkeeper a little too far out, lofted the ball over her and watched as it bounced into the open net for a 1-0 lead.
The Lady Lobos evened the match at 1 midway through the second half when Lopez’s Samantha Valdez attacked down the middle and found the net.
With a little less than 20 minutes left, Zamora provided her team with the game-winner. She lofted a long shot that carried into the goal to make it 2-1 and eventually secure the victory.
In the boys match, Lopez went up 1-0 on a penalty kick by Daniel Cruz midway through the first half before the Vikings tied the score at 1 on a goal via a header on a corner kick with eight minutes to go before intermission.
It was 3-1 for Pace at the half as the Vikings added two more goals within the last five minutes before the break.
Scoring the first-half goals for Pace were Ian Perez with two and Christopher Zapata with one.
Cruz added his second goal for Lopez from close range with 18 minutes left, but the Lobos came no closer.
Pace had beaten Lopez 3-1 during the first round of district last month.
In district, the Vikings improved to 6-4 with 18 points. The Lopez boys slipped to 6-4 with 17 points.
“I think mentally we were strong the whole match,” Pace coach Mario A. Zamora said. “Then, after it was 3-2, we still kept our mentality intact and (even) tried to score a fourth goal.
“I have to recognize the effort from the Lopez boys,” Zamora added. “The effort from Lopez never stopped. All in all, I think it was a great game for the fans. Both teams played their hearts out, and, fortunately, we got the win, so I’m happy with that.”
A heavy fog moved in by the end of the boys match, cutting down on vision across the field.