John Martinez woke up last Monday feeling that something would be in his team’s favor that day.
Besieged by injuries much of the season, McAllen Rowe was on the outside looking uphill at a shot at the playoffs.
“We told the girls that something would be in our favor, that something would go our way,” the 10th-year Rowe head coach said. “I don’t want to say we thought we were done. Our girls believed we were playing for something.”
Their final regular season game came against PSJA North. They needed a win and for Sharyland Pioneer to upset fourth-place Sharyland High. Midway through the game against North with a victory nearly in hand, word came: Pioneer did it.
“Sure enough, it became our favor,” Martinez said.
Now the Warriors face District 32-5A champion Harlingen South at 7 p.m. Thursday at Donna High stadium. Contrarily, the Hawks are a team that breezed to the championship with a 15-1-2 record during district play. They scored 74 goals in those 18 games and allowed just nine.
In other matchups between Districts 31-5A and 32-5A, eight-time defending District 31-5A champion McAllen High plays at home against Donna North (6 p.m. Friday), McAllen Memorial travels to Brownsville Porter (7 p.m. Friday) and Edinburg Vela hosts Brownsville Veterans (7 p.m. Friday). District 30-5A’s Mission Veterans will host Gregory-Portland (6 p.m., Thursday), Corpus Christi Flour Bluff will play Laredo Nixon at San Antonio Southside (6 p.m., Thursday), Laredo Martin will play Victoria West, also at Southside (8 p.m. Thursday) and La Joya Juarez-Lincoln will play Corpus Christi Veterans Memorial at Cabaniss Stadium in Corpus (7 p.m. Friday).
Check out the full girls soccer bi-district playoff schedule here!
Rowe and South faced each other in a non-district matchup early in the season, Rowe winning 6-2. However, that was 18 grueling matches, 100 position changes and dozens of injuries and recoveries ago.
“We have built up our team a lot from when we started,” Harlingen South head coach Debra Galvan said. “Of course, teams get better as they go throughout the season.”
Both teams are offensively lethal. Harlingen South is led by twin sisters Alexis and Aliyah Fonseca with 17 and 10 goals apiece. Their leading scorer is Damaris Solis with 19 goals during district play. With tons of team speed, the Hawks like to control possession and use that speed efficiently.
Rowe is more like a chameleon of playing styles. They may run or they may be physical — it’s usually a mixture of both. Ayloni Garcia scored 40 district goals and missed three district games. Her speed and tenacious ball skills usually means she’s the most dangerous player on the field. She also tallied 28 assists. Camila Gil and Mia Mata combined for 36 goals, 21 and 15, respectively, and 48 assists, 36 and 12. They are deadly from deep and on set plays.
“We know what they have, a lot of powerful legs,” Galvan said. “We want to keep the ball from their feet, keep possession as much as we can and utilize our forwards as necessary. The team that makes the fewer mistakes will come out victorious.”
Despite being a No. 4 seed, Martinez said the rigorous schedule of District 31-5A — a district that added powerhouse Edinburg Vela and a solid PSJA North team to the schedule — more than likely helped the team prepare for the postseason, and a meeting with a No. 1 seed right off the bat.
“Every game was with a tough opponent, there were no breaks and it was draining,” Martinez said. “And a lot of our upper-class girls have been in this position before. This is it. Win or go home. South has a lot of team speed, and I’ve been preaching all week that speed kills in any sport.
“Physically, we have some tough girls who won’t shy away — they have some physical girls, too. It’s a heavyweight matchup. We’ll do our thing and see what they throw at us.”