By EDWARD SEVERN, Staff Writer
BROWNSVILLE — Brownsville Rivera will play host to the BISD Soccer Showcase this weekend.
The Brownsville-area schools will be joined by San Antonio Southwest, a solid soccer program that went to the Class 5A regional final. Valley View beat Southwest in that regional final, but the Dragons are just as strong as last season.
The competition will be good for local schools.
“The coach of Southwest is my friend,” Rivera coach Salvador Garcia said. “Southwest wanted some good competition, so we set something up. They are a really good team. It benefits us both.”
The hosts will look to build off a couple of good wins this past weekend in an upstate tournament. Rivera lost to a really good Round Rock Westwood team, but picked up a win against A&M Consolidated and Spring Dekaney.
“For us, we prefer a showcase because we do not have to wait around and see who we are going to play. You get your games and you play,” Garcia said.
Garcia said the showcase will be comprised of full games instead of games with condensed 25-minute halves that are common in tournaments.
“The players are just warming up, and then we have to go to halftime,” Garcia said. “With a showcase, we get to be more flexible with the roster and give more players minutes.”
PSJA Southwest joins San Antonio Southwest and plenty of Brownsville-area schools: Brownsville Veterans Memorial, Brownsville Rivera, Brownsville St. Joseph, Brownsville Jubilee, Brownsville IDEA Riverview and Port Isabel are in the showcase.
Each team will play three games. Jubilee and IDEA Riverview will kick off the showcase at noon Thursday. The final game of the showcase will be Rivera-Jubilee at 4 p.m. Saturday.
Today, the games will be held from noon to 6 p.m. On Friday, the schedule is the same, but Saturday begins earlier with the first game starting at 10 a.m. and the last at 4 p.m.
“We lost a couple of teams because of COVID, but we are happy with the teams that we got,” Garcia said. “It is a good opportunity for these teams to get minutes as we begin the season.”