The Harlingen High Cardinals made the trip out west for the first time in program history, meeting Midland High in their final non-district game of the season.
The Bulldogs defeated the Cardinals 51-31 on Saturday morning at Grande Communications Stadium.
“It was definitely an adventure, for sure,” Cards coach Manny Gomez said. “There wasn’t too much to see on the road, there was nothing but oil fields, but they had so many turf football fields in town. They take their football serious, for sure.”
The Cards got some offensive fireworks going during the fourth quarter. Jaime Galvan hit Joe Reyna on a 75-yard strike and, later on, Galvan found Damon Cantu for another 75-yard score.
“We will work on some fundamental things on all three phases of the game,” Gomez said. “But overall it was a great experience, along with the team bonding.”
The Cardinals enter their bye week in Week 6 before traveling to San Benito on Oct. 12 in the District 32-6A opener.
Friday’s Game
La Villa 14, Santa Maria 13
Orlando Vallejo’s blocked extra point proved to be the decisive play as the Cardinals went into Santa Maria and came out with a much-needed victory.
The Cardinals won the game, but La Villa coach Daniel Perez saw plenty of room for improvement.
“We didn’t play too good,” Perez said. “We had a lot of opportunity to score and didn’t, we had one of our touchdowns called back, and we had a lot penalties called against us; but it was a close game and Santa Maria played a real good game.
“There is a lot of room for improvement, because we dropped a lot of passes, missed some tackles and missed some assignments. But I talked to the kids after the game and told them, ‘When you play bad and can still win, that’s a good sign.’”
The Cougars posted a touchdown on the board first, but it was Damien Felix that started the momentum shift for the Cardinals. On the ensuing kickoff, the sophomore running back/safety took the kickoff and went 89 yards for the touchdown to level the game. During the third quarter Rey Felix snuck into the end zone for the Cardinals’ first lead of the game.
Despite the loss, Santa Maria had a good night with the running game. Edward Martinez led the Cougars’ rushing attack with 111 yards and one touchdown on 18 carries. Freshman Erick Castellanos wasn’t far behind, running for 105 yards on 11 carries.
While the running game impressed, the Cougars had a tough night with the passing game. In total, Santa Maria had zero completions on nine attempts, finishing the contest with 293 yards of offense.
Next week, the Cougars take on Progreso. But for now, Santa Maria coach Steve Flores would like to start by finding some depth on his roster.
“I don’t want to take away anything from La Villa because they played a good game, but we’re looking to find kids that can help us and give some of our starters a break,” Flores said. “Whether it be on offense or defense or special teams, just so we can go into district with some fresh legs, because we have to be able to compete a little bit better against the bigger schools in our district.”