PHARR — The No. 1 PSJA North Raiders extended their regular-season winning streak to 22 and head-to-head winning streak against crosstown rival PSJA High to five after a 21-11 victory on Friday at PSJA Stadium in the RGVSports.com Game of the Week.
The Raiders improve to 2-0 overall while the Bears drop to 1-1.
“I was actually very impressed with their defense holding us down. They’ve done a great job the last three years — it’s been tougher and tougher each year to move the ball and score points against them,” PSJA North head coach Marcus Kaufmann said. “That defense, they’ve done a great job on that staff over there and done some things that were hurting us. Offensively, we were scared because they changed some of their schematics on offense and we were worried about it a bunch, and we were able to take care of business just from the sheer aggressiveness of our kids playing really hard.”
Raiders’ quarterback Daren Garcia accounted for two first half touchdowns on a 1-yard sneak and an 8-yard pass to Diego Aparicio near the right-front pylon for a 14-0 PSJA North lead at the break. PSJA North defensive back Jason Almanza also came up with an interception in the end zone to shut down a PSJA High drive in the first.
The PSJA High defense bottled up PSJA North for the majority of the second half with the exception of one big play that ended up being a back-breaker.
Raiders’ back Ethan Guerra exploded for a 60-yard rushing touchdown that started off left tackle before cutting back to the right for the score. He exited PSJA North’s Week 1 contest but was healthy enough to give it a go in the rivalry game against PSJA High and came through for his team.
“I told my boys I’d be ready to come back and ready to practice this week. I came out here and did my best for my boys,” Guerra said. “We came in here ready to go, hyped up. I told my boys we had to win this game, because if they would have won we’d never hear the end of it, so I told them let’s go, gotta keep pumping our legs and get that scoreboard up.”
PSJA High trailed 21-0 before getting on the board with a third quarter safety after the snap on a PSJA North punt attempt sailed over the head of the Raiders’ punter and eventually out of the end zone to make it 21-2. The Bears found a bit of offensive rhythm late as senior quarterback Myles Lopez connected with receivers Ryan Vallejo and Caleb Salas to keep the chains moving.
That led to a 30-yard field goal from Izael Alavarez and a 9-yard touchdown pass from Lopez to Salas with 5:48 remaining in the fourth.
That’s as close as the Bears would get, however, as the Raiders picked up key first downs late to ice the game.
Next for PSJA North (2-0) is the start of District 15-5A DI action with a road game against Donna North (0-2) at 7 p.m. Friday at Bennie LaPrade Stadium in Donna.
PSJA High (1-1) will look to bounce back next week against Mission Veterans (0-2) at 7 p.m. Friday at Tom Landry Stadium in Mission.
“We got to get healed up. We’re pretty beat up from the last two weeks playing two juggernauts, so we need to get well and get ready for district,” Kaufmann said.