By CLAIRE CRUZ, Staff Writer
The East Valley had four teams advance out of the area round in the boys and girls soccer playoffs.
Los Fresnos was the only girls team to reach the regional quarterfinal round. Brownsville Porter, Brownsville Veterans Memorial and Brownsville IDEA Riverview all punched their tickets to the third round of the playoffs for the boys.
The Los Fresnos Lady Falcons defeated Laredo Alexander 1-0 to reach the Class 6A regional quarterfinals in a game that coach Diego Luna said was fun, intense and went down to the wire. Luna credited the strength of schedule Los Fresnos endures during the District 32-6A season with getting his team ready to battle out a game like this one.
“We’re excited. The girls have been working hard, especially during district. Our district opponents are extremely difficult, and that helps a lot. They’re ready for the next round,” Luna said.
Luna said the Lady Falcons “started off really strong” and caught Alexander off-guard by being the aggressor. He felt it took the Lady Bulldogs about 30 minutes to get settled in, then they upped their game and challenged Los Fresnos, particularly in the midfield. The game was scoreless at halftime and stayed tight to start the second half.
During the 28th minute, junior striker Ashley Esparza scored the only goal of the night. She was playing with only one good eye after taking a hit to the face that caused one eye to swell up. Luna said Los Fresnos’ score woke up Alexander and made for a difficult final 20 minutes, but the Lady Falcons stayed composed and pulled out the win. He said the girls work on scenarios during practice, and that helped them make the necessary adjustments and remain confident despite Alexander’s attack.
“The last 20 minutes were extremely intense,” Luna said. “It wasn’t easy to contain them because those are some good players, but … in the last five minutes they were able to take care of the ball and push it up and play the corners. Little things like that really helped us out and played a huge role.
“On the defensive side, one of my seniors really pulled through, Kim Salazar. She saved us the last 10 minutes,” Luna added. “We were exhausted, I was doing rotations as much as possible without disturbing the balance. She did a lot of work on defense and cleared two counters. If it wasn’t for her, they would’ve probably scored two goals.”
The Brownsville IDEA Riverview Rockets continued their historic season by defeating Alice 5-2 at H-E-B Park in Class 4A. Haziel Mejia recorded his second consecutive hat trick in the Rockets’ first playoff journey to help lift Riverview to the third round.
“It’s surreal, honestly. We weren’t expecting this. It’s so amazing, and it’s an awesome feeling,” Riverview coach Rudy Rodriguez said.
Alice took a 1-0 lead five minutes into the contest, but the Rockets responded well. Jorge Suarez scored on a corner kick and Mejia put his first ball in the net to put Riverview on top, 2-1. Alice tied things up, then Mejia scored his second goal to give the Rockets the edge at halftime.
Riverview leaned on a stellar defensive effort to frustrate Alice and take advantage of its mistakes. Sebastian Barrios and Mejia scored in the second half to pad the lead, but Rodriguez said the defense — anchored by Suarez, a right side defender, and mid defenders Antonio and Emiliano Soto — was the star of the game and sealed the victory.
“We knew that they liked to play the long ball for their forward, who was a very fast player. So, we worked hard to shut the player down and it worked,” Rodriguez said. “Defensively, it was the perfect game. My team did amazing. Huge, huge shoutout to (Jorge Suarez, Antonio Soto and Emiliano Soto). They did an amazing, amazing job. They stopped every single thing. And then, of course, whenever the ball was able to cross that defense, my goalkeeper, Luis Ramos, was there to shut it down.”
The Harlingen High Lady Cardinals saw their incredible season come to an end in a 4-0 loss to Northside Brennan at Corpus Christi Calallen.
“The wind was a huge factor, it was really strong,” Harlingen High coach Debra Galvan said. “We attacked with the wind in the first half and didn’t take as many shots as we wanted to, but in the second half we calmed the game down. We had our chances, just didn’t capitalize and we made two mistakes that cost us the game.
“But I’m so very proud of the way that we played,” she added. “After the game, I told them to keep their heads up because we played our best game today, the score just didn’t show it. I’m so proud of every single one of them because they all played with so much heart. They’re such an amazing group of girls.”
Galvan praised the senior class for leaving it all on the field in their final game. Freshman Naeori Resendez and sophomore Rosa Zapata were among the young players Galvan said played well in the loss. Harlingen High will use the game as a learning experience as it looks forward to having another strong season next year with a plethora of girls returning.
“It was a good experience for us. It was a good stepping stone for us to see what we have coming up. We’re graduating four seniors, so we’ll still have a really good team next year and we’re looking forward to it,” Galvan said.