HARLINGEN — La Villa quarterback Brandon Felix played a part in all six of the Cardinals’ touchdowns in a 38-14 win over the Harlingen Marine Military Academy Leathernecks.
Felix threw for three, ran for two and had one touchdown reception in the non-district win Thursday.
“He [Felix] is an athlete,” La Villa head coach Daniel Perez said. “He is never going to give up. I am always scared, I want him to go down, you saw how he bumps around and he is not going to lay down. He did really good tonight.”
The quarterback’s last two touchdowns were scored with the game already out of reach.
The most impressive touchdown by Felix was when he found wide receiver Luke Serna behind the defense for a 48-yard touchdown. That was Felix’s favorite touchdown, the quarterback said. All of the quarterback’s passing touchdowns went to Serna.
“Started off slow and I came back, knowing that I had to do better,” Felix said. “The way that we are working right now, it is going to look like a pretty good season.”
The deep touchdown pass was in the beginning of the second half. The Cardinals were down 7-6 at the break and started the second half with the long touchdown to go up 12-7.
“We started off pretty slow,” Perez said. “We made a lot of mistakes, mental mistakes and we were not ready to play. At halftime, I talked to them, corrected little things and they played good in the second half.”
The Leathernecks responded with a long touchdown by quarterback Benjamin Smith. The junior followed his blockers and cut it upfield for a 38-yard scoring run.
Smith put the Leathernecks up 7-6 with only 1:19 left in the half.
Felix put the Cardinals up 6-0 in the first quarter with a short touchdown run. The Cardinals had other opportunities in the first half, but the Leathernecks’ defense held them to a single touchdown.
“We try to play bigger teams and bigger schools,” Perez said. “So, whenever we get to district and when we face schools that have the same guys as us and we have alreay played bigger schools, we are ready to play against them.”