By ROY HESS | The Brownsville Herald
Sunny skies, 50-degree temperatures and gusty winds greeted the teams on Thursday’s opening day of the Brownsville ISD Girls Soccer Tournament.
Thursday marked the beginning of the 2019 UIL soccer season in Texas.
There were 24 teams involved in pool play games at six artificial-turf sites in Brownsville on Thursday.
Pool play with new group configurations continues starting at 9 a.m. today at Brownsville Veterans, Pace, Rivera, Hanna, Sams Memorial Stadium and Brownsville Sports Park.
One of the teams that went 3-0 on the first day of the tournament was Brownsville Veterans Memorial with wins against La Fera (1-0), Eagle Pass (2-0) and Rio Grande City (3-0).
Raquel Cepeda scored the lone goal for the Lady Chargers against La Feria. Kaylyn Maradiaga and Ania Laguna had the goals against Eagle Pass. The Lady Chargers who scored against RGC were Loren Averyt, Julissa Canada and Maradiaga.
Lady Chargers coach Luis Troncoso was glad to see his team win three games on its home field Thursday, but he tempered his enthusiasm.
“I guess the first thing to do is look at the improvements we need to make, and we need to make sure we key on that so we can get better,” Troncoso said. “It takes a lot of work, but it looks like we’re getting there.
“We still have a lot of tough competition coming up (in this tournament),” he added. “Right now, we’re a work in progress.”
Brownsville Veterans won Group A and Eagle Pass was second.
The Group B winner was Pace and the runner-up was San Benito. La Joya Juarez-Lincoln won Group C at BSP and PSJA North finished second. Group D was played at Sams Stadium with Mission Veterans and PSJA High tying for first place. The Lady Bears prevailed for the top spot in the group on a tiebreaker. Lopez ended up in third place.
At Rivera, the Lady Raiders won Group E with Weslaco High finishing second. Hanna won Group F on its home field with Weslaco East coming in as the runner-up.
After pool play today, the top six teams advance to additional pool play starting at 10 a.m. Saturday at Brownsville Veterans (Gold Group) and at Pace (Silver Group).