NATHANIEL MATA | THE MONITOR
The Mission High Eagles improved to 2-2 on the season with a quiet but strong non-district performance. Mission’s losses came after a turnover-ridden fourth quarter against Brownsville Hanna and in a one-possession loss against a stacked Mission Veterans team.
The quarterback play of sophomore Damian Gomez may come as surprise to fans outside of Mission, but not to coach Koy Detmer.
Gomez has completed 23 of 59 attempts for 476 yards in three games. In the team’s last outing, against Eagle Pass Winn, he added 66 yards on the ground, showing an ability to escape the pocket for positive plays.
Detmer is optimistic about his team’s standing heading into district play.
“We feel good about where we are,” Detmer, in his second year coaching the Eagles, said. “We have improvements like everybody else. We have to get some things squared away so we can finish off more of these drives. It’s been a good non-district, and I feel like we’re heading in the right direction.”
The defense led the Eagles a season ago, and defense will need to be key again to give Mission a shot at getting into playoff contention.
Mission opens up district play against the bruising run game of La Joya High on Thursday night at Valley View ISD Stadium in Hidalgo.
The Eagles kept three of their four non-district opponents under 20 points. Detmer feels the 45 points allowed in the team’s loss two weeks ago was just an outlier in the rearview mirror.
“I feel really good about our defense,” Detmer said. “They had their lapse (against Hanna), which was a shame, but If you look at three out of our four games, they’ve had a strong performance.”