By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
ELSA — The Edcouch-Elsa Yellowjackets remained undefeated in District 32-5A at 2-0 with a 38-7 victory at home Friday over the Porter Cowboys at Benny Layton Sr. Memorial Stadium.
It was all E-E from the outset as the Yellowjackets, now 3-2 overall, went up 13-0 during the first quarter and led 35-0 at intermission.
“Any time you get a victory, it’s always a good thing,” E-E coach Joe Marichalar said. “Our coaching staff did a tremendous job of getting our players ready, and above all, these kids came out and played Yellowjacket football, which is always good.
“We did a better job of controlling the clock tonight, and I think a lot of things were going our way,” he added. “This whole week we had been talking about the fact that we have yet to play a complete game.
“We’re still searching and we’re still trying to fix those little things that got a little messy at the end there tonight (with penalties and other situations). We need to go back to the drawing board and fix those little things.”
E-E tailback Lino Sanchez rushed 2 and 10 yards for touchdowns in the opening period. “La Maquina’s” scoring spree continued during the second quarter as running back/quarterback Christian Valdez bolted 26 yards for a TD before teammate Andrew Segura found the end zone on runs of 18 and 4 yards.
For E-E, Ricky Moreno, Valdez and Segura finished with 104, 84 and 62 yards rushing, respectively. Moreno, a speedster out of the backfield, went over the century mark on just four carries.
Porter (2-3, 1-1 district) hurt itself with turnovers early in the contest and could never quite get its offense untracked until near the end when a 42-yard scoring pass from QB Frank Alvarado to wide receiver Israel Yanez put the Cowboys on the scoreboard to make it 38-7 with 6:34 left.
“I thought someone stole our jerseys and put some imposters in our uniforms (the way we were playing so poorly in the first half),” Porter coach Tom Campos said. “It just wasn’t Porter football that first half.
“We had a long talk at halftime, and I told our players that if we’re ever going to change the image of our program, we can’t have first halves like that,” Campos added. “It wasn’t just the first quarter or just the second quarter, it was the complete first half. From special teams to the offense and to the defense, we kind of came unraveled.
“We were able to regroup at halftime and hold them to three points in the second half, and we got on the scoreboard, too, so there was some good to it, but it was definitely not the way we want to come out and compete every week.”
E-E’s only points of the second half came on a 40-yard field goal by Abram Castelleja with 7:55 showing in the third quarter.
The Yellowjackets were coming off last week’s 21-7 triumph over PSJA High in their district opener. Porter defeated Donna High 31-21 in its district opener last week.
District 32-5A action continues for both teams next Thursday as PSJA Southwest is at Porter and E-E is at Donna North.