By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
PSJA North’s inaugural appearance at the Region IV-6A Tournament turned out to be one the Raiders probably won’t want to remember as San Antonio Brandeis’ Patricio “Pato” Botello-Faz scored four first-half goals en route to the Broncos’ 5-1 regional semifinal victory Friday at Brownsville Sports Park.
District 27-6A runner-up Brandeis advanced to face Rivera in the regional final at 3 p.m. Saturday at BSP. Rivera reached the final by defeating San Antonio Reagan 3-1 earlier Friday.
Brandeis coach Brian Maher was pretty pleased with his team, particularly Botello-Faz.
“This is unexpected (to win so decisively),” Maher said. You don’t come down here and beat a Valley team like this. Somehow we did. We had something on our side. It was ‘Pato.’ He’s something else.
“This is kind of history-making for us (to be in the regional final for the first time),” Maher added. “We played Rivera last year (in the regional semifinals and lost 2-1), and our players said they wanted another chance to play them. I told them they had to be careful what they asked for, but here we are playing Rivera again. It’s what our guys wanted.”
Just six minutes into the match, Botello-Faz attacked down the middle on a breakaway and sent the ball into the right corner of the net for a 1-0 lead. From there, the scoring parade by Brandeis’ senior forward began, and it soon became 4-0 before halftime.
Botello-Faz added goals during the 18th, 34th and 37th minutes.
District 31-5A runner-up PSJA North’s best chance to score came when the Raiders were awarded a penalty kick six and a half minutes into the second half, but the attempt was stopped by the Broncos’ goalkeeper.
A goal by Brandeis’ Chris Blum midway through the second half made it 5-0.
PSJA North’s Jonathan Aguilera scored his team’s lone goal with six and a half minutes remaining to cut the lead to 5-1.
The Broncos were awarded a penalty kick with four minutes remaining, but the PSJA North goalkeeper stopped it.
PSJA North qualified for the regional tournament for the first time with victories in the first three rounds of the playoffs. The Raiders defeated Lopez 2-1 in bi-district, Hanna 1-0 in the area round and McAllen High 1-0 in a regional quarterfinal.