By ROY HESS | Staff Writer
The Brownsville IDEA Frontier Chargers are headed to the state playoffs in soccer on a positive note.
The District 32-4A finale for IDEA Frontier and Port Isabel on Friday night at Brownsville Sport Park ended with the Chargers prevailing over the Tarpons 2-1 (4-2) in penalty kicks.
Chargers coach Steven Martinez said it secured fourth place in 32-4A for his team. IDEA Frontier (7-5, 20 points) will go up against District 31-4A champion Progreso next week in the bi-district playoffs.
“Our boys played their best game this season,” Martinez said. “We missed a lot of (scoring) opportunities, but with another week of practice we should be good to go.”
Despite the loss, Port Isabel (9-3, 28 points) already had clinched the outright championship in 32-4A and is expected to play Grulla next week in bi-district.
The Tarpons were coming off Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to Monte Alto.
“We look at these last two games as tuneups for the playoffs,” Tarpons coach Josh Kirton said. “We didn’t really want to finish (the regular season) with two losses, but I saw some good things from our guys tonight. They battled hard, and they played with heart and grit. We just have to get ready for the playoffs. We need to work on our PKs.”
It was obvious things weren’t going to be easy for Port Isabel after Chargers goalkeeper Jose Mendieta blocked the Tarpons’ penalty kick during the 25th minute, keeping the match scoreless.
Still, the Tarpons went up 1-0 with one minute left in the half when Erik Espindola sent a slow roller into the net.
IDEA Frontier evened the score at 1 during the 47th minute on a header by David del Bosque off a corner kick taken from the right side.
Neither team scored again during the remainder of regulation and overtime play, and after 100 minutes, the match went to PKs.
Port Isabel went first in the PKs and had its initial penalty attempt blocked. IDEA Frontier converted all four of its PKs to win the game, while only two of four Port Isabel attempts found the mark.
Making PKs for the Chargers were del Bosque, Roger Covarrubias, Juan Franco and Alexis Saldana.
Scoring in the PKs for the Tarpons were Angel Sarabia and Angel Fernandez.
The Tarpons defeated IDEA Frontier 4-1 in Port Isabel during the first round of district on Feb. 19.