GREG LUCA | STAFF WRITER
LA JOYA — Joseph Moreno said transferring to La Joya High as a senior and having to learn new coaches, new teammates and a new system was a challenge.
He felt he had already established himself in two seasons at McAllen Rowe, racking up 1,367 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns. But with his mom working in the La Joya school district and his dad, Joe, taking a receiving coach position with the Coyotes, Moreno found himself starting from scratch.
“Coming in, I wasn’t as happy,” Moreno said. “But now I am. We’ve proven that we can win games, and I’m just happy for that.”
With Moreno as the focal point of the offense and a do-it-all threat, La Joya High cruised to a 21-0 win against Mission High in its District 30-6A opener on Thursday at La Joya ISD Stadium.
Moreno ran 12 times for 91 yards and hauled in three passes for 113 yards and a score, leading the Coyotes in both facets.
“The biggest challenge was when he came in, he didn’t know too many guys,” La Joya coach Reuben Farias said. “But the young men embraced him, and he felt right in, like brothers. And I told the team, this is a young man who, his father is helping coach our team. His son is going to be a big part of our program on the field. He’s an asset. And right now, he’s been fulfilling a lot of those things that we expected from him.”
After playing primarily receiver in Rowe’s air-raid attack, Moreno has been asked to fill every role in La Joya’s offense. He’ll split out wide, take handoffs from a tailback position and run sweeps or end-arounds from the slot or tight end.
Moreno said none of the tasks were new on their own, but that the burden of doing them all together was a significant change.
“It’s different,” Moreno said. “I’m not going to say we don’t have any support here, but at Rowe it was already set over there. Over here, coming in, they were looking at me and really wanting me to produce. But I’m doing that, so I’m happy.”
The Coyotes’ offense entered Thursday averaging a district-worst 135.8 yards per game. Against Mission, La Joya came through with 315, including a total of 204 for Moreno.
He gained 26 on an end-around that set up quarterback Irving Garcia’s 7-yard touchdown run in the second quarter, and in the fourth he extended La Joya’s lead to 14-0 when he hauled in a 71-yard scoring pass from Garcia down the seam on 3rd-and-20.
“I knew it was a touchdown from the start,” Moreno said. “The safety had cheated over to the left, and it was an open seam.”
Garcia scored La Joya’s final touchdown on a 2-yard sneak.
Meanwhile, La Joya’s defense continued to prove why Farias calls the group the backbone of the team, posting its second shutout of the year. Even with leading tackler Fernando De La Rosa sidelined by an ankle injury, the Coyotes allowed just 209 yards of total offense. “We were just trying to come in and limit the yards that Mission had,” linebacker Rey Hernandez said. “We knew they had a strong offense, and we were just trying to limit the points they could score. Thank God, we limited them to zero.”
Neither Eagles quarterback could find a footing on Thursday. Freshman Damian Gomez finished 4 of 12 with 43 yards and two interceptions, while senior Rudy Treviño, in his first action since a Week 2 injury, completed 4 of 7 attempts for 18 yards.
Mission picked up 148 yards on the ground but averaged just 4.2 yards per carry. The Eagles got as close as La Joya High’s 11 before Tito Delgado came up with an interception late in the first half. With 7:49 to play in the fourth quarter, Mission turned the ball over on a dropped lateral, setting up La Joya High’s final touchdown drive at the 21-yard line.
“They were huge. Something we’ve talked about is being good with the ball and not having the turnovers, and not making mistakes that hurt you,” Mission High coach Koy Detmer said. “We have to be much sharper and much better with our execution. We have to be better all the way around.”