KEVIN NARRO | Staff Writer
Something will have to give tonight at Bobby Morrow Stadium.
Both Harlingen South and San Benito will meet and one team will earn their first district win, while the loser will fall to 0-2 in district play with three weeks to go in the regular season.
The Greyhounds will host Harlingen South tonight at 7:30 p.m.
Both South and San Benito enter Week 8 in a bit of a funk, with both squads dropping three straight contests.
In a six team district, each game is critical and whichever team’s falls to 0-2 will be in a deep hole and could possibly put their playoff hopes in jeopardy.
“I still question if this is a must-win, but the winner of this game will definitely put themselves in a position when it comes to the playoffs,” said South coach Brian Ricci. “Both teams are in the same situation right now.”
South will look to get their offense back on track after posting just three points and 110 total yards of offense last week against Los Fresnos.
“We have been putting points up on the board we just had a bad outing the other night,” Ricci said. “We talked about it and one thing we talked about was starting fast. We can’t wait; we need to start fast and be ready to go.”
The Hawks will lean on senior QB David Torres to rekindle their offense against a stingy Greyhound defense led by three-year letterman John Daniel Gonzales.
South will take on another mobile QB in Smiley Silva. The Hawks have squared off Weslaco’s Jacob Cavazos and PSJA North’s Izaiaah Rangel.
“There are always some tweaks, but as far as the scheme, we are still running a base defense; we just have new personnel out there,” Ricci said. “We are just looking for a little bit of more consistency. We played well at times and we have played really well. In the past, we have had a hard time of getting off the field on third and long. We need to finish playing and when you get a team in that situation, you need to be able to get off the field.”
For the Greyhounds, it will home sweet home as San Bentio hasn’t played a home game since Week 1 of the season against Corpus Christi Calallen.
“District wins are important no matter what part of the season. A win is important,” said San Benito coach Dan Gomez.”
Despite the skid, the Greyhounds remain upbeat and have shown resiliency throughout the week.
“The kids do what they have to do in order to improve,” Gomez said. “Their minds have been right and they have been getting after it. This has been a good week for us, business as usual; they have put in some extra work to get themselves better.”
Look for San Benito to get back to their bread and butter with Silva under center along with running back Kyler Castilleja. Against Harlingen, the ’Hounds posted 13 points and put together 154 total yards of offense.