BROWNSVILLE — San Benito Greyhounds running back Fabian Garcia two touchdown fourth quarter powered the Greyhounds to a 17-3 non-district victory over the Brownsville Veterans Memorial Chargers Saturday night at Sams Memorial Stadium.
“I am glad about how we responded in the second half,” San Benito coach Dan Gomez said. “We came out and did some really good things. We will be looking at the tape tonight, fix some things that we have to work on and get ready for Pace.”
Garcia’s first touchdown put the Greyhounds up 10-3 with 8:24 seconds left in the game. The Chargers responded with a good drive, but a fumble turned the ball back over to San Benito with over five minutes left in the ball game. The Chargers fumbled multiple times on the night, killing promising drives.
“Our defensive performance was great,” Gomez said. “They [Brownsville Veterans] do a great job offensively and even defensively, the program over there at Veterans has really taken a step forward. Our kids came out and responded well to the things we are trying to do.”
The Greyhounds churned out first downs and Garcia found the pylon on a 16-yard run to put the game away with less than a minute left in the game.
The game was tied at the half 3-3 as both teams looked to gain a foothold via the run game.
“I was proud of them for fighting the whole way,” Chargers coach Kelley Lee said. “It was a really good game and came down right to the end. I thought we were establishing ourselves in the first drive of the third quarter, had a great and turned it over in the redzone.”
That seemed to be the theme of the second half Lee said.
“You cannot beat a good team like San Benito if you put the ball on the ground and they did a great job of not doing that, hats off to them,” Lee said.
The Chargers will be on a bye next week and then return to action against Brownsville St. Joseph.
“We came into this banged up and down three starting offensive linemen,” Lee said. “We had a lot of guys take every single rep and go both ways. Normally, you would not like to have your bye in the second week of the season, but it comes at a good time for us.”
San Benito will host Brownsville Pace at 7:00 p.m. next Friday.