EDINBURG — One Rio Grande Valley high school baseball team is guaranteed a spot in the Sweet 16 as Edinburg Vela and La Joya Palmview square off in a best-of-three Region IV-5A quarterfinal playoff series beginning tonight at UTRGV Baseball Stadium in Edinburg.
Game 1 between the Palmview Lobos (27-8) and Vela SaberCats (26-10) is scheduled for 7 tonight. Game 2 will be played at 5 p.m. Saturday. Game 3, if necessary, will follow 30 minutes after the conclusion of Game 2. All three games will be played at UTRGV Baseball Stadium.
“(La Joya Palmview) is coached well and very prepared. They have a lot of hard throwers, throw a lot of strikes, put the ball in play — they do a lot of things really, really well,” Edinburg Vela head coach Jaime Perez said. “Our job as a staff is trying to find what we can capitalize on, but I don’t know, they don’t have a lot of holes in that lineup in that organization right now, but Rick Garcia does a real good job with his preparation and so do we. Friday night we’re going to find out. They’re guessing who we’re throwing, we’re guessing who they’re throwing. I think it’s going to be a good cat and mouse game. I think it’s going to be a really good series.”
“Edinburg Vela has a great coaching staff and great ballplayers,” Palmview head coach Rick Garcia said. “We scrimmaged them early in the year, and we knew they were going to be tough throughout the season and were in a tough district. There’s a lot of respect for them, the type of ballplayers they have and they type of coaches they have. I think we’re both ready to play a great series.”
LOBOS LIVING LARGE
Back-to-back District 30-5A champion La Joya Palmview ran into a first-round wall in both 2021 and 2022 with bi-district playoff matchups against state-ranked Coastal Bend squads.
“It gave us a lot of motivation. It lit a fire in us,” Josiah Gonzalez said.
This year, Palmview broke that wall down with a bi-district sweep of Corpus Christi King. The Lobos won Game 1, 9-5, and Game 2, 3-2 in 10 innings off a walk-off RBI single by Mateo Garcia.
In Round 2, La Joya Palmview played three close games against Sharyland Pioneer and used a three-run rally during the bottom of the seventh inning to win Game 3, 3-2, sending the Lobos back to the regional quarterfinals for the first time since 2019. It’s the fifth time in program history Palmview has reached Round 3.
“We’re going to go out and give it our all. After losing in the first round the last two years to coming back this year and upsetting every team we’ve played, it’s been amazing,” junior Joe Cerda said.
Palmview enters the regional quarterfinals as winners of 12 of their last 13 games, and after pulling off the late-game stunner against Sharyland Pioneer, they’re ready for another best-of-three battle against Edinburg Vela.
“We’re never going to quit fighting. We’re never going to give up,” Tony Villarreal said. “We’re going to keep on fighting down to our last three outs, until the blue says ballgame.”
SAME OL’ SABERCATS
Edinburg Vela is back in the regional quarterfinal round of the playoffs for the fifth straight year and is yet to lose a game this postseason.
“The standard has been set before us, so we try to live up to that every year,” senior Justin Navarro said. “The whole year, we’ve been playing for each other, playing for our seniors. Our motto is, ‘Play for the name on the front, not the name on the back,’ and that’s helped us a lot and we’re getting hot right now.”
The SaberCats finished as the No. 3 seed from District 31-5A and earned a first-round matchup against Brownsville Veterans. Edinburg Vela swept the Chargers with wins of 7-3 and 3-1.
That set up a best-of-three area-round playoff series against Class 5A’s fourth-ranked team, Corpus Christi Veterans, last week. The SaberCats only needed two games, however, pulling off their second consecutive sweep of the postseason with 6-4 and 7-1 victories.
The SaberCats have a blend of experienced upperclassmen that have Round 3 playoff experience and a group of young guns that have grown throughout the season to create a team peaking at the right time.
“The team chemistry has grown so much from the beginning of the season, just learning to play together and not play alone. This is a team game, and we all rely on each other to come out victorious,” senior Bobby Garcia said.
Senior pitcher Jake Dufner missed his junior season due to a shoulder injury and had to watch as the SaberCats advanced to Round 3, where they lost to La Joya High in three games, ending their 2022 campaign. He’s back, healthy and helped Edinburg Vela advance to the regional quarterfinals with a complete-game performance in Game 2, giving up one earned run off four hits and four walks against Corpus Christi Veterans. He hopes the SaberCats can break through to the regional semifinal round for the first time since 2018.
“It was honestly one of the worst feelings I’ve ever experienced in my life, sitting down and not being able to play the sport I love, but it feels great to be back this year and being able to contribute and help my team get past this hump, and hopefully be able to get to the fourth round this year,” Dufner said. “This year, I feel like it’s the year we have a chance.”