By CLAIRE CRUZ | Special to RGVSports.com
With the first round of district play coming to a close, Harlingen South needed a win against Brownsville Hanna to stay in a tie for first.
It didn’t come easy, but the Lady Hawks pulled off a 3-2 victory behind a rare two-goal effort from Isabel Aldan.
“Our girls just never give up,” South coach Omar Pedroza said. “Isabel plays very hard, sometimes a little bit too hard, but that’s her style. Tonight that paid off, because she was hustling and she was right there when we needed someone to be there, and she put it away.”
Hanna was in control for much of the contest. Pedroza and the Lady Hawks knew Hanna had a standout player in Ana Barragan, but they still struggled to contain her. Barragan raced through the South defense and showed off strong ball handling to put the Lady Eagles on top with a goal with 28 minutes left in the half.
South turned up the intensity as the clock wound down, finding more scoring chances as it played a more aggressive style. Inside the 1-minute mark, Sarah Garza found the net to tie the game.
Hanna continued to challenge South’s defense, sending two shots wide and one that resulted in a nice save before Barragan struck again midway through the second half on a long kick.
“There’s not that many good players like her,” Pedroza said of Barragan. “She controls things. She’s an outstanding player. I mean, she scored from, like, 30 yards out. My goalie is very good, and she didn’t have a chance.”
Trailing once again, Garza and the Lady Hawks turned up the heat. Hanna’s defense was tight, but South managed to maintain possession better and find scoring opportunities thanks to some foul calls.
With nine minutes to play, Aldan tied the game on a close-range score after a corner toss and a battle for possession. Just more than two minutes later, she found the net again as Hanna’s goalie came out too far trying to knock a ball down, and Aldan snuck behind her to send the ball into the goal.
“I didn’t think I was going to score, so when I did it was shocking. … I never really score. It felt good,” Aldan said.
While the home team was celebrating, across the pitch Hanna was struggling to swallow the loss.
“We’re sad because we had the game, and to lose a game like this is very hard,” coach Eliseo Guzman said. “Those foul calls were the thing that caused the goals.”