By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
Looking at Friday’s showdown between Los Fresnos and Hanna for the District 32-6A championship in girls soccer, things could be decided quite easily as far as a lone title winner, or they could become a little bit complicated.
The Rio Grande Valley’s top-ranked Lady Falcons visit the No. 2 Lady Golden Eagles at 7:15 p.m. Friday in the final district game for each team.
The simplest way to break down the game is to say the team winning in regulation or overtime between the Lady Eagles (11-2, 32 points) and Lady Falcons (11-2, 31 points) gets three points and captures the outright district title in the ultra-competitive 32-6A girls race.
But if the match goes to PKs like the last time the teams played each other in Los Fresnos on Feb. 17, then yes, it could get somewhat crowded at the top of the 32-6A standings with a possible three-way tie for first place.
The last time Hanna played Los Fresnos during the first round of district, the Lady Falcons prevailed in penalty kicks at home to post a 3-2 victory. If that happens again and the Lady Falcons get two points for a win in PKs and the Lady Eagles get one, three teams will share title — Hanna, Los Fresnos and Harlingen South (11-3, 33 points).
The South girls completed their 32-6A schedule Monday with a come-from-behind 3-2 victory over Harlingen High. The Lady Hawks trailed 2-1 at halftime and needed a last-second goal in regulation to prevail over the Lady Cardinals in their “Bird Bowl” matchup.
Also, Hanna could win the 32-6A title exclusively Friday by prevailing in penalty kicks.
“If we just play our hearts out on the field, I think we can come out on top,” said Natalie Garcia’s Hanna’s junior midfielder/forward and leading scorer. “Los Fresnos is a good team, I’ll give them that, but so are we, so it should be a pretty good match.”
Added teammate Frida Palomo, a junior outside midfielder, “This is a chance for us to show what we’ve got. Honestly, I believe we were the better team last time, but we just came up short in penalties. This time, in the second round, we’re going to give it our all because we really want to win district this year.”
Regardless of Friday’s outcome, 32-6A figures to send a strong contingent of four girls teams into the playoffs.
LOOKING AHEAD: This is the first year for three classes of competition in UIL soccer, and the Metro area will have strong representation in the postseason once the playoffs start next Thursday.
Teams going to the playoffs for the 32-6A girls are Los Fresnos, Hanna, Lopez and Harlingen South, while Rivera, Hanna, Lopez and Brownsville Veterans Memorial are advancing for the 32-6A boys.
In District 32-5A, the boys from Porter and Pace are headed to the playoffs, while for the 32-5A girls, Pace has qualified and Porter was keeping its fingers crossed and hoping to reach the playoffs for the first time.
The Port Isabel boys and girls are headed to the playoffs from District 32-4A along with the boys from IDEA Frontier of Brownsville.
Two of the three Region IV tournaments will be played April 10 and 11 in the Rio Grande Valley. The Region IV-6A Tournament will be at Brownsville Sports Park, while the Region IV-4A Tournament will be in McAllen. The Region IV-5A Tournament will be in Corpus Christi.
Roy Hess covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @HessRgehess.