By STEFAN MODRICH | Staff Writer
When rivals Brownsville Veterans Memorial and Brownsville Pace get together on the soccer field, even the victor is bound to leave with a few nicks and bruises.
Such was the case for the Chargers in a 2-0 victory over the Vikings in the teams’ District 32-5A opener Friday night at Brownsville Veterans.
“(Pace) is a very intense team, they’re very competitive,” Brownsville Veterans coach Alberto Vasquez said. “They’re extremely scrappy, and it’s a team that — you’ve got to be ready to play against them.”
Pace coach Mario A. Zamora felt his team played its best during the game’s first 10 minutes, when Jonathan Mendoza and Erik Chavez both had scoring chances.
“ Obviously, we didn’t score when we had those chances,” Zamora said. “(Brownsville Veterans) is always a team that plays pretty good, and the chances that they had, they took them.”
But at the 34-minute mark, Felipe Esquivel knocked the ball past Vikings goalkeeper Alfredo Gallegos after he allowed a rebound in front of the net to give the Chargers a 1-0 lead.
Albert Maradiaga led Esquivel for another point-blank chance for the Chargers with 29 minutes remaining, but Gallegos cleared the ball away.
With 14:30 left in the first half, Brownsville Veterans again created heavy traffic in front of the net, and Maradiaga buried the ball in the back of the net to put the home team up 2-0.
With eight minutes to go, Pace’s Jose Capistran launched a shot to the far corner that required Chargers goalie Alek Gomez to lay out to scoop the ball on the ground. It was the closest the Vikings came to putting a dent in their two-goal deficit.
Mark Boswell left the game at the 27-minute mark of the second half and Esquivel left the field after the game with ice taped to his calf muscle, but Vasquez said he would need to “wait and see” and that he wanted to exercise caution with Boswell in particular, who has been banged up throughout the season.
Pace’s Gabriel Morales and Jonathan Mendoza also exited the game due to injuries in the second half, which Zamora also said were precautionary measures.
It was a chippy second period, one that saw Jose Capistran earn a yellow card after his tackle of Ruben Garcia spilled the two players out of bounds onto the sideline.
Vasquez was impressed with the way his players stayed cool as the intensity and physicality amped up on the other sideline.
In addition, Maximiliano Rivas was carded for unsportsmanlike conduct and Christopher Zapata departed after he earned a yellow card for reaching over the back of a Chargers player as a scrum of players fought for a ball in the air with eight minutes to play.
“The season is long,” Zamora said. “We’re going to talk about this, learn about our mistakes, and looking forward to trying to win on Tuesday.”
Brownsville Veterans’ Pablo Perez was issued a yellow card two minutes later.
The Chargers had several quality scoring chances in the half. Of those opportunities, Brownsville Veterans managed to draw iron on three separate occasions, two of which started from the foot of Cesar Cepeda and occurred less than six minutes apart. Cepeda hit a strong shot that rang off the crossbar for a long rebound from 25 yards out.
“Cesar had some good shots from the outside,” Vasquez said. “Unfortunately, they didn’t wanna go in for him.”
Cepeda followed that near-miss by striking the bottom left post on a free kick. The ball proceeded to ricochet across the box to clip the other post before it was cleared out of the Vikings’ end.
On Tuesday, district play continues as the Chargers are scheduled to visit Donna High and the Vikings are set to play host to Edcouch-Elsa. Both games are slated for 5:30 p.m. starts.