MERCEDES — The PSJA North Raiders and Mercedes Tigers will meet Friday in The Monitor’s Game of the Week as Class 5A and 6A high school football teams begin to make their returns to the gridiron in the Rio Grande Valley.
The Tigers and Raiders will be one of a handful of Valley matchups featuring a pair of 5A and 6A teams participating in their season openers after Grulla, Hidalgo and La Feria kicked off the 2020 football season in the Valley last week. For Mercedes and PSJA North, it will also mark the Raiders’ only non-district games of the 2020 regular season.
In what promises to be a monumental matchup featuring two of the RGV’s most prolific offense and bruising defenses. It will mark the first time the Raiders and Tigers have clashed on the football since 2005.
The Tigers are coming off a 7-4 regular season that ended with a 21-17 bi-district playoff loss to the Alice Coyotes, but return a large number of starters and playmakers.
Offensively, Mercedes will be led by dynamic junior dual-threat quarterback Michael Cisneros (1,905 passing yards, 11 TDs) and athletic senior wideout Josiah Cantu (796 receiving yards, five TDs), while the defense will be captained by senior all-state linebacker Brandon Adame (177 tackles, 20.0 TFL, four sacks, three forced fumbles), one of the Valley’s most elite defenders.
Adame will meet his match on the opposite sideline, as the Raiders are also led by one of the hardest hitters across South Texas in senior outside linebacker Micah Lopez (143 tackles, seven TFL), who will take the reins this season as the leader of North’s Blackshirt Defense.
PSJA North, which is coming off a 5-5 season in which the team narrowly missed out on a return trip to the playoffs, will be looking to kick off 2020 with a big road win. Offensively, the Raiders should lean on All-Valley junior running back Isaac Gonzalez (1,418 rushing yards, 14 TDs, eight 100-yard rushing games) as the team decides on its newest starting quarterback this week.
Kick-off between the Raiders and Tigers is set for 7:30 p.m. Friday at Tiger Stadium in Mercedes.