BY SAUL BERRIOS-THOMAS | THE MONITOR
Edinburg Vela is off to a 2-0 start under new coach John Campbell, but for Campbell, there is no reason to celebrate yet.
“We are trying to improve in every area: offensively, defensively and special teams,” Campbell said. “The whole purpose of non-district is to try to get those as polished up as you can before district play. With us losing a scrimmage, it puts even more stress on these three ball games, to try to get everything as cleaned up as possible.”
In Week 1, Vela visited Laredo Martin and came away with a 34-13 victory. Last week, Vela hosted Edcouch-Elsa in The Monitor’s Game of the Week and pulled out a late victory, 56-35.
The 35 points allowed is a concerning total, but Campbell remains confident in his defense.
“I thought, once we were able to settle down, we played quite well defensively,” Campbell said. “The challenge this week is we have to put together a complete game on that side of the ball. We played quite well in the second half. We struggled a little bit in the first half. At the same time, offensively it goes hand in hand. We have to convert first downs and get our defense off the field.”
Campbell said he isn’t even thinking about district play yet. His only focus is Week 3. The SaberCats will travel to Brownsville to take on the Brownsville Veterans Chargers at 7:30 p.m. on Friday at Sams Memorial Stadium.
“Once again, we have a top-10 caliber opponent, so we will be challenged again, and hopefully we continue to improve at the rate that we improved last week,” Campbell said. “We had the privilege of taking over a program that was in very, very good shape. I was very pleased with the resiliency we showed the other day. Anytime you are able to put a ball game away in the fourth quarter the way we did the other day, you feel good. That saying, ‘You are only as good as your last performance,’ well that last quarter, we played pretty good football. So hopefully, we are able to continue to build on that, and we have a very critical Monday practice this week.”