By Jesus Sanchez | The Brownsville Herald
Throughout the game, the Pace Vikings and Brownsville Veterans Memorial Chargers went back and forth exchanging turnovers and touchdowns.
It seemed the showdown was going to end up tied as Pace was on its way to even the score, but a Tony Medrano interception shut the drive down, securing a 21-14 win for Brownsville Veterans Friday night at Sams Memorial Stadium.
“The Pace Vikings are a tremendous football team,” Chargers head coach David Cantu said. “We have a world of respect for them, so to come out, at the end of the day, victorious, I’m speechless of how proud I am of our group of boys, who have been through a ton of adversity. We’ve had countless number of starters out, but it was a next-man-up mentality and a lot of kids really stepped up. This is what it’s all about.”
Pace (6-3, 6-2) inched its way closer to the end zone at the Brownsville Veterans 20 before Medrano’s interception
Medrano ran the pick back 46 yards to give the Chargers (7-2, 6-2) the ball on the Vikings’ 34.
From there, quarterback Liam Longoria took care of the rest, rushing for 22 yards in five carries and completing a 10-yard pass to Elijah Masten to run out the clock.
“We got outplayed,” Pace head coach Danny Pardo said. “We didn’t play our game. We were not focused. We were not ready to play mentally. That’s what happened. Hopefully, these kids learn from it. It’s simple but we shouldn’t have lost to these guys. There’s no reason why, but that’s just my opinion.”
Pace appeared to be one step ahead, especially after Jonathan Perez recovered a fumble for the Vikings and took it all the way to give the visiting team a 14-7 lead late in the third quarter.
Yet, the Chargers would not be denied and kicked it up a notch, following the loose ball with two scoring drives against the Vikings to give them the lead in the final quarter.
At the start of the game, both teams went scoreless in the first quarter and were tied at halftime with one touchdown each.
Pace quarterback Jose Banda hit paydirt first with a 25-yard keeper.
The Chargers responded with a 1-yard QB keeper of their own from Longoria.
After the Vikings took the lead once again on Perez’s fumble recovery, Brownsville Veterans traveled 78 yards to tie things up early in the fourth on Longoria’s second touchdown, a 10-yard QB keeper.
Jose Moreno ran for 9 yards to put the Chargers ahead 21-14 for the first time in the game one drive prior to Medrano’s game-changing interception.
“We all came together and my whole team, we were practicing hard all this week and we wanted to come out with the dub and that’s what we did,” Moreno said. “We’re going to take it as a big team, still come out like we did today with Pace and keep going.”
Moreno finished the game with 33 yards rushing on eight carries; Longoria 81 rushing yards on 15 carries; and Gilbert Garcia 51 rushing yards on two carries.
For the Vikings, Banda tallied 102 rushing yards on 14 carries while Brandon Zapata garnered 64 rushing yards on 15 carries.
“It was a hard game,” Zapata said. “It didn’t go the way we planned. We have to focus more and we need to practice harder. That’s all we need to do.”
Pace, who already has clinched a playoff spot, will face Rio Grande City in its last regular season game next Saturday at Sams Memorial Stadium.
With two district defeats, Brownsville Veterans will need to defeat La Joya Palmview next Friday to secure a berth in the postseason.