By EDWARD SEVERN, Staff Writer
East Valley girls soccer teams are scheduled to begin their district seasons Tuesday.
Most East Valley teams struggled in the playoffs last season, with most exiting early. The Harlingen High Lady Cardinals were one of those teams with an early exit, but hope to rectify that come playoff time.
“Of course, we want to defend our district title, but if we don’t, we are not going to dwell on it,” Harlingen High coach Debra Galvan said. “We want to make sure that we go far this season, and even if we lose games we want to build on them and get better every single game for tougher competition later on.”
The Lady Cards are returning two key players and captains in their defense, sweeper Lauren Powell and keeper Erianah Garza.
“It has always been a goal for us to accomplish more than what we did the year before. As a team, we are working together and getting better every week to achieve that,” Garza said.
Said Powell, “Last year we won district, but we are putting that behind us. We don’t want to settle on that because we don’t want to be complacent. Some teams we beat went farther than us, and it upset us. We want to be the last team standing in the (Rio Grande) Valley.”
The team that went the furthest in the East Valley was the Los Fresnos Lady Falcons, who reached the fourth round. During the third round, they beat Donna North, a team from district 32-6A that is usually good.
Harlingen South is another strong team in the district. South will open against the Brownsville Hanna Lady Eagles. Hanna took second in the BISD tournament earlier this month and will hope to shake things up in the top four this season.
The Lady Cardinals open with Rivera before they take on the Lady Hawks in Week 2, an early Bird Bowl for the clubs.
The Brownsville Lopez Lady Lobos and Brownsville Porter Cowgirls shared the District 32-5A title last season, but like everyone else in the district, they both were eliminated in the first round.
Porter coach Abraham Gracia thinks it could be another interesting year with COVID-19. Teams this year cannot cancel or postpone games, and will have to use their bench or their junior varsity squad. Most teams, boys and girls, could not field a junior varsity team last season.
“We need to look further,” Gracia said. “We already won district, we are trying to get to the third round or deeper.
“We open up with a good (Brownsville Veterans Memorial) team. It should be a fun season.”
Brownsville Veterans and Edcouch-Elsa rounded out the top four in 32-5A last season.
BVM-Porter is expected to be the most exciting match for both boys and girls Tuesday. Both teams made the playoffs last season. Brownsville Lopez will take on Donna High in another intriguing opening district match