ELSA — Harlingen South scored twice during the game’s first 20 minutes and dominated time of possession on the way to a 5-1 win over Edcouch-Elsa in District 32-5A girls soccer Friday at Benny Layton Memorial Stadium.
Harlingen South improves to 11-0-2 to remain atop the district and inches closer to a 32-5A title with a five-point lead over second-place Donna North with five matches remaining in the regular season. The Hawks can go from a step to a leap toward that title Monday when they play Donna North on Tuesday and follow that with a Friday game against third-place Brownsville Porter. Both games will be played at Harlingen South.
Those matches also mean something to Edcouch-Elsa with a 7-4-2 record and 23 points, four behind Brownsville Veterans for the fourth and final playoff position. The Yellow Jackets have games against Porter, Brownsville Lopez, Donna High, Weslaco East and a regular-season finale against Brownsville Veterans.
Aliyah Fonseca scored a little more than three minutes into the contest, and teammate Kayren Vasquez scored on a rebound that rolled in front of the goal for what seemed like an eternity to make it 2-0 with 21:50 remaining in the half.
“It was a good start and we needed to score against the wind. We needed to attack and win every 50-50 ball,” first-year head coach Debra Galvan said. “Same thing happened last time where we were winning at the half and they came back and scored, so we had to continue to press them.”
They did just that, scoring twice during the first eight minutes of the second half to pull out to a 4-0 advantage. Alexis Fonseca scored twice in the second half, and Sereniti Adams also found the back of the net for the Hawks.
Galvan said that the Fonseca twins have been a devastating duo since they have both been moved around positionally.
“We like the way they connect,” Galvan said. “They own the position and, no matter what, they are playing their hardest the entire game.”
While the Hawks controlled the ball for maybe 75% of the time, they also showed they could mix it up with long counter passes to their speedy offensive players up front.
“We tried to win the 50-50s, and when we were able to stop them we would counter quickly,” Galvan said. “That would move the ball forward, and they had to play defense a lot.”