By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
The stage is set for the Hanna Lady Golden Eagles to play for a District 32-6A championship in girls soccer.
With Friday’s 3-1 victory against the Rivera Lady Raiders at Sams Memorial Stadium, the Lady Eagles now can prepare for next Friday’s showdown at home against the Los Fresnos Lady Falcons with the 32-6A title on the line.
Friday’s win at Sams kept the Hanna girls (11-2, 32 points) in first place in the district and headed to the playoffs, while the Rivera girls (5-8, 16 points) have been eliminated from postseason consideration.
Each team has one district game remaining. The same night Hanna will be playing host to Los Fresnos, the Lady Raiders will be closing out their season at San Benito.
Hanna went up 1-0 in the early stages of the match when Arjona, a sophomore attacking midfielder, came off the bench to tally her team’s initial goal.
“I’ve been telling Andrea to be patient and that her opportunity would come, so I’m very happy that she scored our first goal, an important goal,” Lady Eagles coach Jose Morales said. “Since the beginning of the season she’s been learning and picking up (her game).”
Just when it looked as though the match would go to halftime with a one-goal difference, Garcia found the net to make it 2-0 with one minute to go before intermission.
Then, with 14 minutes left in the match, Julissa Urbina made it 3-0 for Hanna.
Rivera answered one and a half minutes later on a goal by Yesenia Ortiz, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the Lady Eagles from recording the win they needed to stay in first place in the highly competitive 32-6A girls race with Los Fresnos and Harlingen South close behind them.
“Rivera is a big rivalry for us, and we knew we had to win this game to (have a chance to) come out on top (of district) at the end,” said Garcia, a junior midfielder/forward. “We played our hearts out.”
Added teammate Adrienne Davis, a junior midfielder, “We knew coming into this game with Rivera that it was going to be very important (to win) with our matchup against Los Fresnos coming up next week, if we’re going to get the district title.
“Our girls knew what we needed to do in order to win this game,” Davis added. “I never doubt them, so I knew we were going to come out on top.”