BY NATE KOTISSO | STAFF WRITER
Rio Grande City was a stone’s throw away from a district title in 2018, finishing a game behind Mission Veterans and Sharyland Pioneer who shared the crown. But things didn’t come as easily to the Rattlers to start this season.
“The girls had all the ability. It was only a matter of, ‘Do they want to compete?’” Rio Grande City coach Nicole Smedley said. “We’ve been working. They had ‘Open Field’ during the offseason. They had to dig deep and learn to be resilient. That’s one of the things that we’ve talked about. Maybe we didn’t start a game off very well or the season off very well. We had to work through injuries and we had to bounce back from that.”
Four weeks ago, Rio Grande City was tied for the last playoff spot, but the Rattlers have been rolling ever since. They’ve won four of their last six games, including an important 8-6 victory over Sharyland High on Tuesday night. Sharyland High and Rio Grande City entered Tuesday tied for third place.
“We’ve had some crazy ballgames in our district,” Smedley said. “And I don’t think that’s just for me. I think it’s happened to a lot of the teams in our district. It’s going to come down to who has the better offense and who makes the (fewest) errors in the field. We’ve had ‘Ws’ that aren’t very pretty, but I’ve told my girls that if an opponent scores nine runs, we have to make sure we have 10 at the end of the ballgame. We’ll take it where we can get it.”
RGC (11-16, 7-4) is the No. 3 seed, thanks in part to wins over Starr County rival Roma and Mission Veterans. The Patriots defeated Sharyland Pioneer on Tuesday, pulling the Rattlers within two games of the Diamondbacks.
Rio Grande City will play at PSJA Southwest at 7 tonight.