By ROY HESS | Staff Writer
BROWNSVILLE — The Mission Veterans Memorial Patriots showed they have every intention of defending their District 16-5A Division I championship from last season.
Actually, they’re going for a third straight conference crown in 2019.
The Patriots rallied from a 14-7 first-quarter deficit against Brownsville Veterans Memorial to defeat the Chargers 42-21 Thursday at Sams Memorial Stadium.
The rally from being down 14-7 enabled Mission Veterans to lead 35-14 at halftime.
The Patriots improved to 2-1 on the season and 2-0 in district.
The Chargers suffered their first loss of the season and are now 2-1 overall. They slipped to 1-1 in district.
“This win gives us the drive to do well next week (and continue winning),” said Mission Veterans sophomore quarterback Ricky Reyna, who threw four touchdown passes against the Chargers and is replacing graduated all-everything QB Landry Gilpin. “We want to keep on doing better every week.
“We had a big momentum changer (with a kickoff return for a TD late in the first quarter to pull even at 14-14),” Reyna added. “We have some playmakers on our team, and our defense came out strong. We had a lot of guys help us win tonight.”
It all started going south for Brownsville Veterans when the Patriots’ Mike Gonzalez returned a kickoff 79 yards down the right sideline to even the score at 14-14 after Nestor Reyna’s kick with four seconds left in the opening period.
Brownsville Veterans had just scored on a 14-yard run by Marlon Montelongo with 0:16 showing in the quarter to put the Chargers up 14-7 after Pablo Perez’s kick.
Earlier, with 8:53 showing in the first quarter, Brownsville Veterans’ Mauricio Garza was on the receiving end of a 72-yard scoring pass from QB Liam Longoria to create a 7-7 deadlock.
Whatever momentum the Chargers had during the opening quarter quickly disappeared as the Patriots started their scoring spree.
Mission Veterans coach David Gilpin said his team played “Patriot Football” Thursday night.
“I know talking about playing ‘Patriot Football’ is cliche because a lot of teams talk about playing ‘Charger Football’ or ‘Redskin Football’ or whatever,” Gilpin said. “We do the same thing, but we define what ‘Patriot Football’ is. ‘Patriot Football’ to us is to be explosive on offense. We’re going to move the ball up and down the field and put points on the scoreboard.
“That’s what we do, plus we play physical on defense,” Gilpin added. “That’s what we did tonight. Our boys came out and played very well.”
A 21-point outburst by the Patriots during the second quarter made it 35-14 at intermission.
At the 9:22 mark of the second quarter, the Patriots’ Mike Gonzaque caught his second of three TD passes from Ricky Reyna on the night — a 14-yarder — to put his team ahead for good at 21-14.
Gonzaque’s first TD reception came during the opening period with 9:37 showing on a 42-yard scoring pass from Ricky Reyna that gave the Patriots a 7-0 edge.
It became 28-14 for the Patriots with 6:41 to go before halftime when Mike Rodriguez recovered a fumble by Longoria in the end zone.
The Patriots marched down the field and scored their third TD of the second period to account for a 21-point advantage, 35-14, at intermission. Even though only one second was left in the half, Ricky Reyna hooked up with Gonzaque on a 23-yard scoring completion in the end zone. Gonzaque made the catch between two defenders with no time on the clock, and the Patriots were on their way to a surprisingly decisive victory.
Longoria scored on a 4-yard run with 4:18 to play in the third period as the Chargers pulled to within 35-21.
But the Patriots weren’t done. They made it 42-21 with 7:41 remaining in the game when Ricky Reyna tossed a 7-yard scoring strike — his fourth of the night — to Allen Vazquez to seal the victory.
Mission Veterans is at home against Rio Grande City next Friday, while Brownsville Veterans is at PSJA Memorial the same night.
The Patriots defeated the Chargers 45-24 last year in Mission.