By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
The Porter Cowboys are showing they are a soccer team to contend with after defeating highly regarded Hanna twice in three days.
With a 2-0 second-round win against Hanna on Thursday at the 34th annual Brownsville ISD Tournament, the Cowboys reached the championship semifinals of the Gold Bracket.
The BISD Tournament features a field of 32 boys teams divided into two brackets and runs through Saturday at Brownsville Sports Park. A 28-team girls tournament is also under way at BSP.
Porter, ranked No. 1 in the Rio Grande Valley this week by RGVSports.com, earned a 3-0 non-district win at Hanna, which previously was No. 1 and now is No. 3, on Tuesday. On Thursday at the tournament, the Cowboys received first-half goals from Ricky Vidal and Alexis Armendariz. Jose Pardillo and Marco Don Juan were credited with the assists.
“We knew it was not going to be easy,” Porter coach Jose Espitia said. “Hanna is a very strong team, and we are looking for those (types of) games to prepare us for district.
“Our boys played their hearts out every single minute of the match because once again it was a ‘Clasico,’” Espitia added. “Then again, this is just preseason and our main focus is (our upcoming) district competition because that’s what counts (the most).”
GOLD BRACKET
While Porter reached the Gold Bracket championship semifinals, so did La Joya Juarez-Lincoln, Harlingen South and either Laredo Martin or Laredo LBJ, teams which met in a late game Thursday.
One of today’s more interesting tournament matchups will have Porter playing La Joya Juarez-Lincoln at 11 a.m. on Field 2 at BSP. The winner goes to the Gold Division final against either Harlingen South, Laredo Martin or Laredo LBJ at 7 p.m. today, also on Field 2.
NAVY BRACKET
Reaching the championship semifinals in Navy bracket were St. Joseph Academy, McAllen High and Edinburg North. The fourth spot in the Navy bracket semifinals will be taken by either Laredo United South or Laredo Alexander. They played a late game Thursday.
This is SJA’s third year at the BISD Tournament, and it’s the first time the Bloodhounds have reached the championship semifinals.
The Bloodhounds opened Thursday with a 3-2 win against McAllen Rowe before downing Mercedes 6-2 in the second round.
“You have a lot of amazing teams, especially from Brownsville, here at this tournament,” SJA coach Tino Villarreal said. “But it just hasn’t been that great of a tournament for Brownsville as right now you see some of the Brownsville schools being taken out of the championship bracket. It’s just an honor for us to make it this far.
“We used to bring teams to this tournament, and our goal was just to be competitive,” Villarreal added. “This year our goal is to actually try to win it.”
SJA next faces McHi at 11 a.m. today on the BSP artificial turf field.