DONNA — As impressive as it was to watch Donna North’s Nancy Espino’s rise to the top alongside the Valley’s elite girls soccer players, what was more of an eye-popper was how little time her rocket-like ascent into the group took.

Unlike many athletes who are born with “a soccer ball on their foot” or “a baseball in their hands,” Espino didn’t begin playing soccer until she was 11 years old.

Four all-district and two all-area awards later, Espino on Wednesday signed her national letter of intent to continue her academic and athletic career with Bethany College, an NAIA school that plays in the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference, and is located in Lindsborg, Kansas.

During her four years for the Chiefs, Espino scored 70 goals and, according to head coach Tony Garcia, was responsible for 60% or more of the team’s total goals during her four seasons. She routinely collected assists and finding the right person to put the ball in the back of the net — that person usually being longtime friend and teammate Gabby Aviles.

“Nancy was just an unbelievable player for us,” Garcia said. “For four years she was just amazing to watch, and she came up big in several big matches for us.”

Those goals, assists and that career almost never developed.

Espino started her athletic endeavors in karate and swimming. Her first time on a field with soccer players her age came when she played with the boys in elementary school. The only training she had was playing outside her house with a neighbor.

“I started with the boys and it was really hard,” Espino said. “I was struggling not only not knowing how to play but also playing with boys. My mom saw I was struggling and she put me on a team of all girls in Weslaco.

“I began as a defensive player but I sure would’ve loved to discover my love for the sport a little earlier.”

But Espino’s persistence and passion, along with encouragement from her mother, kept her spirits up and her goals higher.

“I’m a very sensitive person, so any type of comment I’d have a hard time taking it as something positive,” she said. “She told me I needed to realize that they were trying to help me out.”

Fast forward just a few years to this season.

Donna North finished second in District 32-6A and playing an area-round matchup against San Antonio O’Connor, which won District 29-6A. The Chiefs were down 1-0 midway through the second half, Espino had the ball with a defender on her and another one charging her. Aviles was marked by “three big girls,” Espino said.

When she looked up, she saw the net. She was right at her most comfortable and deadliest distance, about 25 yards out. Garcia yelled at her to pull the trigger and she did.

The ball hit the top post.

“I thought to myself, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’” she said. “I had the whole goal and I had to hit the post. It went over a really tall goalie but then it bounced once and I saw it hit the back of the net. They were a great team and I thought that goal would give us hope.”

The game went into penalty kicks. Espino converted hers and the Chiefs advanced to the next round. Not a bad career so far for a “late bloomer.”

“She started pretty old,” Aviles said. “Before she joined the Sharks (A Valley travel team) and before she played with me and we would play them, she just really stood out then. She would take all the free kicks and kick it super far. I’m pretty sure she was one year in it and it would go so far. I couldn’t do it then at my age. She had the most potential on that team.

“She’s already great, but if she had started younger who know how great she would be.”

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Gabby Aviles found herself in an extremely rare position during one soccer match this season, on the ground as a result of a collision with the oncoming and opposing goalkeeper that, as Tony Garcia put it, took her out.

“That doesn’t happen often to Gabby,” the Donna North girls soccer head coach said. “You could hear her mom in the stands yelling, ‘Don’t let her do that to you.’”

Less than a minute later, Aviles, a senior, exacted her revenge.

“She popped up, springs toward the ball super upset, goes and takes the ball away, dribbles past five defenders and is inside their box again,” Garcia said. “The goalie comes out again and Gabby jukes right by her and puts it in the net. All in, like, a 30-second span.

“I turned to my assistant coach and said, ‘Did you see that? She just got past the team and scored after being taken down.’ That’s just the natural Gabby being Gabby. That’s her having it within her.”

Aviles scored 49 goals during the season and finished with 176 career goals, leaving her as the Valley’s third highest girls scorer of all time, earning The Monitor’s 2021 All-Area Girls Soccer Player of the Year award.

Her 49 goals this past season equaled her total from her junior year. While last season was cut short right before the playoffs began due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this season had fewer preseason and non-district matches. Aviles also missed four matches due to injury, and played another in goal for the Chiefs.

“Our goalie got hurt and my first position was goalie, but it’s not my most comfortable position,” Aviles said. “I don’t like the mid but I would play that over goalie any day. It was hard.”

Aviles also overcame dealing with COVID herself at the beginning of the season and it took her a couple games to get back to 100%.

“It was hard then at the beginning of the season, but it made me even hungrier to do better when I got back,” said Aviles, who signed her national letter of intent Thursday with Hardin-Simmons. “After what happened with our season last year, you just didn’t know when it was going to be the end. The first game was tough but then I got back to doing what I know how to do on the field and to help the team.”

Aviles doesn’t walk onto the field with an intimidating stature or look. Before games and with friends her exuberance is in her laughter, clearly enjoying her friends and surroundings. Maybe that’s why she’s challenged so often on the field physically. As she said during her signing, “They know of me, but they don’t know me.”

“Being short, I have to prove myself every time on the field,” Aviles said. “But my dad would tell me whenever I would face a tall or bigger girl that I’m not there to carry them. I’m there to play them. Most of the teams saw they needed to go in pretty strong and knew I wasn’t going to let myself fall.”

“She just has this way of not going down,” Garcia said. “She knows how to maneuver her body is such a special way that even when she’s pushed, or when they attempt to push her, she uses that to her advantage to get away from the defender, go toward the ball and to the goal. She knows how to use that to her advantage. That’s something she just learned, something that’s just within her.”

Aviles scored 43 of her team’s 86 goals during district play, shining during the biggest of games. During one district matchup in Brownsville, during a timeout not too far into the second half, Aviles came over to talk with Garcia.

“She was telling me that the other girls were saying stuff like, ‘Yeah, you can score over there but you’re here now. You’re ours now,” Garcia said. “It didn’t bother her and I couldn’t figure out why they were saying that. She had already scored twice in the first half and once in the second by then. We just kind laughed about it.”

If holding Aviles to three goals is a victory for the opponent, there may not be a better testament as to how good Aviles has been at Donna North and how much of a nightmare she’s been for her opponents.

“One of the factors that placed her above everybody else is her resiliency,” Garcia said. “She fights. She’s willing to overcome whatever there is. Always.”

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Grace Kelly is an artist and a dancer and, just talking with the McAllen High/IB student, one can tell that the name she bears may be also one of her greatest characteristics.

But, in her soccer uniform, persona replicates the tenacious Bulldog she represents on the soccer field. She transforms into Grace, under pressure.

Kelly waited behind Gonzalez for three years to have her chance to step into the box and be the last line of defense for the perennial power Bulldogs’ program.

Because of that tenacity — along with 14 shutouts and a season when she went 7-for-7 facing penalty kicks — the senior has earned The Monitor’s 2021 All-Area Girls Soccer Goalkeeper of the Year award.

Kelly is the second straight McHi goalkeeper to be honored with an all-area nod, following last year’s All-Area Player of the Year, Lexi Gonzalez.

“I’m not going to lie, it was rough to know I had to wait my turn,” said Kelly, who will attend UT Austin in the fall and study neurosciences. “When I had that opportunity, I fully grasped the situation and worked to be a leader on that team.”

That leadership was visually confirmed at the beginning of the season. With the ball-control style the Bulldogs play, Kelly usually a multitude of attacks, but when opponents did attack, it was in full force.

“Grace was so observant and could use her critical thinking on the field,” McAllen High head coach Patrick Arney said. “She was really coachable, but the thing that helped her the most was that she was so determined to do well this year. She had such a drive. Life would’ve been so much different without her in goal this year.”

Kelly said she knew the opportunity was there and she was determined to take over that spot. More than six months before her senior season began, she dropped some of her other activities to focus on her goal and started working daily, usually out on some field at 6 a.m.

“We knew what she could do but one of the nice surprises was the dedication and drive she has had since last year,” Arney said. “She really went out and got things done and pushed herself. She withstood everything and we hadn’t seen her in overdrive like that.

“One day, one of my teachers was telling me that she saw Grace at 6:30 in the morning in the field across from her apartment working out. I knew then that she really wanted this.”

Kelly said she vividly remembers he first game in goal. Prior to that, she had been a forward. However, during her fourth-grade year, her team’s goalie took a kick to her arm that broke it. On the sideline, the coach looked for the next tallest girl.

“I was chosen to be the goalie,” Kelly said. “So I put on her goalie stuff and that was my first day playing. Then I got kicked in the nose. It wasn’t broken but I was bleeding all over her stuff. She didn’t play goalie again. I became the goalie.”

She’s been there ever since.

Arney said what stood out throughout the year is how she improved and how no one put a ball in the goal during seven penalty kick attempts. In at least one case it was the difference between a win and a loss for the 21-1 Bulldogs.

“I remember my first save against Sharyland after the first PK went over,” Kelly said. “I was feeling the pressure, but it was my moment to shine and I hyped myself up and got situated. I could tell she (the penalty kicker) was trying to trick me and I read through it, saved it and punched it over and we won. It was one of my most favorite high school experiences.”

“Being a goalie takes a special person,” Arney said. “You have to be a little crazy. It was great to see what she did to become a great goalie and the best she could be.”

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The great ones do their jobs on the field or court seemingly with grace and ease, rarely being burdened by the opposition and coming up big on the biggest stages.

Edinburg Vela’s Taylor Campbell has followed that definition throughout her four-year high school soccer career, which culminated in a Valley-leading 61 goals this season and a trip to the third round of the Class 6A playoffs.

Because of her dominance and accomplishments on the soccer field, Campbell has earned The Monitor’s 2021 All-Area Girls Soccer Co-Offensive Player of the Year.

By season’s end, Campbell finished as the Valley’s second all-time leading scorer as three girls, including her, shattered what was the record of 146 goals at the beginning of the year. Campbell’s total: 177.

Imagine what the number could have been if last year wasn’t cut short right before playoffs and this year’s schedule didn’t have fewer non-district games.

“They could’ve reached 200 goals, without a doubt” Edinburg Vela girls head coach Americo Cortez said. “It’s an amazing accomplishment, for all the girls, and it says something about Valley soccer.”

Looking at the offensive juggernaut known as this year’s SaberCats, what’s even more impressive about Campbell’s numbers is the fact that Vela was filled with girls who could score. Still, most teams marked, double marked and even triple marked the future Trinity University soccer player, who said what helped her this year to shed defenders was being stronger. She began lifting weights during the COVID-19 quarantine and the results were obvious.

“Either somebody else would score, or, more than likely, she would still score,” Cortez said. “It didn’t matter.”

During many of Vela’s matches, Campbell could be heard yelling advice, directing traffic and praising teammates for their passes and “great idea.”

But you better not blink once she is in possession of the ball. Not only could she score effortlessly, but she could score quickly, either with crosses, through balls or hears, often pulling the trigger as fast as a gunslinger in the Old West. During one matchup against Edinburg High, Taylor hauled in a pass while standing at the top of the box, with her back turned to the goal. She made one quick move, faced the goal and shot a laser to the back of the net — with her left foot — before anyone could adjust to her having the ball.

“Taylor can score from anywhere,” Cortez said. “She can score from close, from far, off corner kicks, with a header. And she’s very creative. That makes her even more dangerous.”

Campbell first credits having such a talented team as the biggest reason she had the level of success she did this year.

“It was crazy this year to score that much, but honestly what helped was the level of talent we had on our team, it was just outstanding,” Campbell said. “We were always capable of doing what we did but this year we were just a different level and my teammates contribute to so much of my success. Without them, I wouldn’t score like that.”

Campbell began her club career as a defender, playing defensive back. One day her club coach tried her up top. She scored in every game the rest of the season. She hasn’t moved since.

“I started thinking that maybe I’m better on top,” she said. “I stayed there after that.”

Another strength other than talent and all those physical traits, is Campbell soccer IQ.

“You look at the girls who scored a lot this year — (Donna North’s) Gabby (Aviles), (Sharyland High’s) Xochi (Nguma) and I — I really think we have those high soccer IQs and that helped us with a lot of our goals,” she said. “Like knowing where to be at the right time. We think ahead and sometimes we have no time to think but we just have to know to be there.”

And for four years, and least 177 times, Campbell just knew to be there.

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DONNA — As Donna North prepared for its move from District 31-6A to 32-6A this school season, most girls soccer players in that district knew of the Chiefs’ Gaby Aviles.

But, they really didn’t know her. Now they do.

Such will be the case next year, as well, as Aviles signed her national letter of intent Thursday to continue her athletic and academic careers at Hardin Simmons, an NCAA Division III college in Abilene, Texas, that competes in the American Southwest Division.

In front of a crowd that included high school, club and travel teammates — and several teammates from Macedonian Christian School, where she played in fifth and sixth grade — coaches, administrators family and friends, Donna North’s all-time leading scorer and the Valley’s third all-time goal scorer with 176 career goals expressed her thanks to those who helped her realize her dream.

“I have been playing soccer since I was 8 years old, and now all I can think about is how many sleepovers my dad didn’t let me go to because I had practice or a game and I just wanted to say thank you,” Aviles said. “Because you taught me that once I committed to something, I had to see it through.”

Coaches and administrators said people in the soccer community in the Valley would say things like, “Wait until you see Gaby,” even before she entered Donna North as a freshman. Girls head coach Tony Garcia said he let her try out on a summer team before her freshman year, “And it only took a couple minutes of watching her play for me to see what she could do and I said OK. She’s something else.”

Aviles scored 49 goals as a junior and 49 goals this past year as the Chiefs finished second in a loaded District 32-6A, later reaching the third round of the playoffs. She also missed four games this year with an injury and even played goalkeeper one game against district rival Los Fresnos. She said that she would rather play middle, or just about anywhere other than goalkeeper, a position she played as a youth soccer players at times, but she would do whatever it took to help the team.

Garcia talked about some of his memories coaching Aviles, including scoring a goal against district foe Harlingen South from 59.5 yards out on a free kick.

“She kicked it and it just flew magnificently,” he said. “It bounced once, up and over the goalkeeper’s outstretched hands and into the back of the net. Many of the boys can’t kick it that far. She has been an amazing player, student and wonderful person on the team and for the school.”

Nancy Espino, a longtime teammate and friend, made one of the best 1-2 punches in all of South Texas on the field. Even so, Espino admitted that sometimes it was hard not to just fall into what’s known as the Jordan Effect among his own players. They would find themselves not playing, but instead watching the amazing moves, plays and shots Jordan would create, seemingly on his own.

“I’m so proud of her. I’ve been with her during her accomplishments and have been so lucky to be a part of them. She inspires me a lot,” said Espino, who also was a teammate of Aviles on the McAllen Sharks and RGV Elite club team. “A lot of times, me as a midfielder, we play together very well. Sometimes I didn’t even have to run to go support her because I knew she had it all by herself, which is bad but I have so must trust in her and know what she’s capable of. She never misses in my eyes.”

Aviles said she plans to study political science at Hardin-Simmons.

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Describing McAllen High midfielder Melanie Sal as a soccer player is as formidable a task as trying to get past her on the pitch.

On paper, she plays midfield and defense. In fact, her play in those positions for the Bulldogs have earned her The Monitor’s 2021 All-Area Girls Soccer Defensive Player of the Year.

But, in reality, the senior who has signed to continue her academic and athletic career at Southwestern University was so much more than that for McHi this year en route to an undefeated District 31-5A crown and a trip to the Region IV-5A semifinals, also known as the Sweet 16.

“She’s just a good athlete,” McHi girls soccer head coach Patrick Arney said. “She’s fast, agile, she dribbles well, can shoot and pass. She played wing, sweeper, stepper, center mid, even forward a few times this year.”

“When you look at her, you may underestimate her but she’s a superior athlete with a great soccer IQ.”

Saldaña was not only a critical element in the Bulldogs’ defense, but she was also a key for the offense, being the person who usually collected the ball from a defender, or stole it from the other team,

Arney calls that on the very few times an opposing player got past her, she would “kick it up a notch” and more often than not run that offensive player down, steal the ball and turn around to kick-start the offense.

“One time we played a team where that happened and she tracked the player down and took the ball up the field and down the middle,” Arney said. “Then she went past everyone and had a breakaway on the goalie. We would see stuff like that from her all the time.

Saldaña, however, takes a low-key approach to her role, even though she knows how important it is. She said that playing offense most of her life helped her understand the role and made it more enjoyable.

“I guess sometimes people don’s see me as a threat,” she said. “But I know my role and that’s for me to get the ball from the defense and getting it to the midfield. My role is more half and half — offense and defense.”

Saldaña only scored once this year but dished out more than 20 assists on the season. She was also a major threat with corner kicks, gaining several of those assists from there. She also was a “control freak” in the Bulldogs’ controlling style of play, more often than not touching the ball more than anyone else on the team, working with Chloe Fallek and Hayley Nixon in a triangle to open gaps in the defense and either scoring, or finding someone with a through ball who ended up scoring.

“All those things just made her such a bigger threat,” Arney said. “She was the complete package. She is so fast, she could cover so much ground. It’s what you want in the middle of the field. It just seems like she was everywhere all the time.”

While her ball control skills and ability to take the ball seemingly at will from most opponents is what most people see most of the times, Saldaña is also no easy pushover and will use her physicality if necessary.

“Opponents look at her and maybe think she’s just an athlete, but she can be a physical player too. She did it at Cedar Park and there were a few times when she used that physicality to knock someone down, legally. Nothing cheap or dirty. She won’t back down. She really is the complete package.

“Now I need to find another one to replace her.”

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Maybe it was when Camila Gil scored against Brownsville Lopez to tie their second-round playoff game this season with less than 10 minutes remaining that the tag “fabulous freshman,” got unofficially placed on the McAllen Rowe player.

But, when she floated a corner kick perfectly into the box and sophomore teammate Abby Rocha headed it in for the game-winning goal in that same playoff matchup, the tag was elevated to “Freshman Phenom,” (yes, with capital letters for emphasis).

However, when you talk to The Monitor’s 2021 All-Area Girls Soccer Newcomer of the Year, those crucial performances are nothing more than her “just trying to help my team.”

Gil, a freshman forward for the McAllen Rowe Warriors brought with her everything Rowe girls soccer head coach John Martinez expected from her ever since he saw her play during the summer heading into seventh grade.

“She played with our high school summer team and she was scoring goals then,” Martinez said. “We knew she was going to be special. How special? We didn’t know that, of course, but she showed us this season that she was pretty special.”

The Rowe forward scored 36 goals and dished out 17 assists for the 20-5-1 Warriors this season. A midfielder during her years in middle school, Martinez made the switch to move her closer to the top after seeing her movement in the midfield.

The results were immediate.

“We needed someone who could control the ball so we pushed Camila up high and it opened just so many windows,” Martinez said. “What we saw her doing at midfield she kept doing it up top on the offensive third – and now she was just 20 yards from the goal with that powerful leg.”

Gil didn’t know what her role in this past soccer season was going to be. In fact, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that began last year and shut down soccer teams across the Valley just days before the postseason, she didn’t know if she would have a role at all. Many schools across the Valley, state and country paused freshman teams or junior varsity teams from competing. Still there was a sprinkle of freshmen playing here and there.

“Coach Martinez gave me the call to come and practice with the team and then gave me a uniform and said I was playing varsity,” the soft-spoken Gil said. “It was good news. He had given me some hints but I was just trying my best to make the team.”

Gil, however, didn’t play like the normal freshman. She showed leadership skills – and talent – well beyond her high school years… well, year.

“I usually let the girls talk about what they need to improve on during halftime,” Martinez said. “And during the first match against McHi, Camila was talking – and everyone, seniors and all, were listening. And it made a difference.”

Gil is quick to admit that she needs to work on her quickness and speed, especially to reach her goal of playing at the next level. While she has a powerful leg and moves craftily without the ball finding ways to get open, the end goal for Gil is just to continue getting better.

“I’m really hoping I get better at what I do and can prove that I can make it to the next level,” she said. “My big goal is to play at the college level. I’m getting better at passing and my shots, but I want to work on my takeoff and my quickness.”

Martinez said what Gil may lack in speed, she makes up in her soccer IQ.

“She puts herself in great positions. She knows where to go and how to anticipate, that’s how she gets open all the time,” Martinez said. “She understand and wants to attack that. I know she’ll get faster and that will just make her more dangerous.

“She’s humble and wants to do what’s good for the team. We talked about her goals and her response was that I could put be back to midfield if it would help the team. Her teammates respond to her. She has that aura about her. With Camila, I definitely got what I wished for.”

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McALLEN — Michael Smith has been named the new head coach for the McAllen High volleyball program, replacing Paula Dodge, who announced her retirement earlier this year after 25 years at the Bulldogs helm.

Smith had been the head coach and Class 2-AAA for the Jackson High Volleyball program in Georgia since April 2018. He has led his team to two regional titles – the first in their school history, and three Sweet 16 appearances from 2018-2020.

“I’m so excited,” Smith said by phone from his home in Georgia, adding that his wife is in the Valley closing on their new home. “We will be there for good here in another week. We should be arriving in the Valley next Friday, permanently.

Michael Smith

Smith was a Bulldog while attending the University of Georgia. He said his sister told him, “this was meant to be. You’re a Bulldog.”

“I know I have very big shoes to fill,” he said. “Coach Dodge was there for a long time and built a beast of a program, extremely successful. It’s easier to be a good coach for a little bit than to be one for 25 years. So it’s incredibly large shoes to fill. Now I want to continnue that work, build relationships and take it to the next level.

“But being a Bulldog again makes me very happy, and I can get down with the purple and gold.”

McAllen ISD Athletic Director Paula Gonzalez said “we are very excited to bring in a coach of this caliber. Coach Smith earned state coach of the year honors last season and is an excellent choice for an outstanding program like the one at McAllen High.”

Dodge won nearly 600 games during her stellar career at McHi and was named to the Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2020 last year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no induction ceremony and it was rescheduled to this June 19 at the Mission Events Center. He has an 83-33 record during his three most recent seasons at the school.

A Red Wing, Minn., native, Dodge’s first coaching job came at Brownsville Hanna, where she was the varsity track coach from 1985-1993. She coached varsity basketball at Brownsville Lopez before moving to McAllen to become the head volleyball coach in 1996. She coached the Bulldogs to five district championships, taken her teams to the state playoffs 19 times and reached the regional tournament six times, including the past two years.

Come back to RGVSports.com to read more on the story.

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McALLEN — For her first three years playing girls soccer at McAllen Rowe, Sabina Sanchez performed like an all-district player and, rightly so, earned three all-district honors.

This year, however, Rowe head coach John Martinez moved her from the forward spot to wing. For Sanchez, the transition was seamless since that’s where she played for her club soccer team. For Rowe, the transition paid dividends immediately and for the entirety of the season as the Warriors claimed a 20-5-1 record, captured third place in a loaded District 31-5A and advanced to the second round of the Class 5A playoffs.

The Warriors collected an 87-24-3 record during Sanchez’s four years. Now, she’s taking her skills and endless work ethic to the next level. Sanchez, the Warriors’ four-time offensive MVP, signed her national letter of intent Friday to continue her academic and athletic career at Southwestern University, an NCAA Division III university that plays in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.

Martinez said after the team graduated its left wing from the past three seasons, he needed to find someone to fill that crucial position. Sanchez, who had offered to move from the glory position of forward to the grit-and-grind midfield spot throughout her first three years, fit that spot perfectly.

“That was our big question, how to fill that spot,” Martinez said. “All season, she dominated that side. Wings have to play from end line to end line and she was up for that challenge. She always had said if we needed her, she would play it but we needed someone up top who could take on a defender and score.”

Sanchez still scored, finishing the season with 12 goals and a career with 62 goals. However, with freshman offensive juggernaut Camila Gil on the scene, the move to send Sanchez to the wing was beneficial for everyone involved. While her goal total was the lowest in her four years, she contributed with pinpoint accuracy passing and ended up with 16 assists.

“She was so comfortable at the position,” Martinez said. “I liked to say she’s playing chess while the other girls are playing checkers. She gets the balls, sees the lanes, can hit the through passes. She knows what she was going to do with the ball before she even got it. If you have someone out there who can do that, you will definitely have a lot of success.”

Likewise, Sanchez said the move placed her in a spot she was familiar with and allowed her to showcase her greatest strengths.

“Moving to wing was a big step for me,” she said. “I felt like this year I was able to help out team a lot more from the wing. I had a bunch of assists and feel like I specialize in that more than as a forward. But there is too much running there.”

Sanchez said she wasn’t thinking about playing in college until Martinez, who also played at Southwestern from 2003-07, started talking to her about it.

“He thought I should pursue soccer in college,” Sanchez said. “So I emailed the coach and invited him to some of my clubs games (with the RGV Classic Elite) and emailed me back and that was it.

“I went up there and it was so pretty and my friend (Melanie Saldaña) from McHi is going there, too, so that’s great.”

Sanchez plans to study business or biology for pre-med while as Southwestern.

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Abbigail Villafranca is a hurdler. Ask her, and she will confirm that, yes, indeed, that’s what she is.

So, when McAllen High girls track head coach Luis Cantu asked her to run in the 400-meter relay, a realization dawned on her.

“Oh, my gosh, my dad was right,” Villafranca said. “My dad always told me, ‘You’re gonna be a 400 runner and I would say, ‘No, I’m not.’”

Villafranca is still a hurdler, but near the end of this 2020-21 track season she became the final piece of the Bulldogs puzzle for a mile relay squad that broke the school record during the Region IV-5A meet last week and is competing in the UIL State Track Championship at the University of Texas’ Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin.

The three-day event begins Thursday, May 6, and runs through Saturday, May 8. Classes 3A and 4A will compete Thursday, Classes 2A, 5A and wheel chair division are Friday, and 1A and 6A will be Saturday.

Villafranca, Charlotte Beck, Sabrina Garza and anchor Leslie Sequera ran as a unit for the first time during the Sharyland High/Steve Stark relays March 12. The results were eye-opening for Cantu and the McHi coaches.

“The day before (the meet) we had morning practice and Leslie (Sequera) came up to me and said, ‘Abby, we are going to bribe you with money,’ but I said, ‘No, I have the 300 hurdles.’ Then Coach put me on. I was so nervous, I didn’t want to let the team down and started thinking, ‘I can do this. I’m capable.”

“We had three strong with Leslie, Charlotte and Sabrina but we were a leg short,” Cantu said. “Abbigail was that missing piece. She ran a 60(-second) leg and we looked at each other and knew that we had found that piece to get to state.”

The squad ran to a time of 4 minutes, 1.39 seconds — nearly 16 seconds ahead of second place, in 4:17.29.

“She wasn’t a big fan of running the mile relay,” Cantu said. “And at first she said that same thing. Once she got there though, she’s someone when you have others counting on you, she doesn’t want to let anyone down and that’s what drives her. She’ll do anything to get that baton to Charlotte.”

The team didn’t run as a whole again until the region meet. Juniors Aleah Saenz and Avery Scurlock stepping in for the District 31-5A and 5A Area 31-32 meets, where the 4×400 girls just kept winning, claiming first in both meets to advance to regionals.

There, after just running together once, the Bulldogs set a school record with a time of 3:58.79. The previous record was set in 1981.

“After Sharyland I knew we could put something together at regionals and go under 4 (minutes),” Cantu said. “We knew we would have to go 3:58 to have a chance to get out and get to state. The girls were talking about breaking the school record and they did. Now our goal is to get under 3:58. With the environment and competition at state, it’ll get then going.”

Once the final piece of the 4×400 was set, Garza, who also ran the 800 and mile this season, said everything quickly moved from expectations to reality.

“We talked about going to state, we talked about breaking the school record and now we’re where we expected to be. Every single runner on that team runs a 58 or 59. Abby came in and we won that first relay and knew things would work out,” Garza said. “We gave it our all at regional and knew we didn’t want to let each other down and didn’t want that race to be the last race or the last lap.”

An extremely competitive and intense group of runners, Garza said that their expectations for state are just as aggressive and high as their goals were at the beginning of the season.

“We’ve been working on handoffs and know we can shave off a second or two by keeping the baton moving. We have been slowing down as we hand it off and need to make sure we are still running. If you shave off a half second for all three handoffs that’s a lot.

“Our goal is to come in at 3:55 or under. We want to put up a fast mark and be on the Valley’s all-time list.”

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