By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
Brownsville Veterans Memorial and Los Fresnos are looking to bounce back from tough losses. The focus turns to earning a postseason berth as they meet in a District 32-6A matchup tonight at Leo Aguilar Memorial Stadium in Los Fresnos.
The Chargers (5-3, 3-2) and the Falcons (5-3, 3-2) are tied with two other schools for second in District 32-6A with just two games to play, including tonight’s important game.
Neither squad felt they were sound on offense during losses in Week 9.
“We just didn’t execute, we didn’t execute routine plays, we didn’t play well,” Los Fresnos coach Clint Finley said. “You can give the credit to (Rivera) coach (Tom) Chavez and his team over there. We weren’t ready to play, we didn’t play well. They did, they made the plays and they deserved to win that football game.
“They had their backs against the wall last week, and now we have our backs against the wall this week.”
Brownsville Veterans coach David Cantu was particularly blunt regarding a lack of execution.
“I give credit to the other teams, and we got exactly what we deserved,” he said of the Chargers’ back-to-back losses to San Benito and Harlingen High. “We have to put together a complete team effort, and we didn’t. We have a saying we use, ‘You don’t necessarily get what you want, youget what you deserve.’ We feel like we deserved to lose those two games.”
Finley said the Falcons have to focusedon themselves during practice this week and what they do best.
“We’re going to have to come out and play with some intensity, some desire, a lot of emotion,” he said. “But yet we’re going to have to play within ourselves to get the job done playing against a good football team, a very talented football team. We’re going to have to play great.”
Cantu equally was impressed with the way his team practiced this week, especially after two straight defeats.
“We’ve had really good focus this week,” he said. “We’re optimistic that if we’re able to put all three phases together at the same time, that we’ll go over there and compete. That’s all we can do.
“It’s been one of our most positive weeks of practice, hopefully it carries over.”
As the Chargers and Falcons try and regroup to make a run at a playoff spot, Cantu thought his team learned a good lesson during last week’s lackluster offensive showing. Brownsville Veterans gained just 76 yards, and all but 4 yards were on the ground.
“Maybe we needed a little humble pie on offense,” Cantu said. “We were putting up some good numbers, and sometimes it gets taken for granted.”
The Chargers and the Falcons are two of the top offensive teams in the district, but each struggled against a stout defensive effort last week. Each squad will try to get back on track to move toward a postseason berth.
“More than anything, execute on the offensive side. That’s something we didn’t do last week, and we have to get back to that,” Finley said. “We have to come out and execute and be atour best when it means the most. It means a lot right now.”
Andrew Crum covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6629 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter, he’s @andrewmcrum.