BY SAUL BERRIOS-THOMAS | THE MONITOR
Coming into Week 8, Edinburg Vela hadn’t trailed in any district game.
PSJA Memorial changed that. The Wolverines stopped the SaberCats on their opening drive. Later in the first quarter, Memorial had a bad exchange to the punter, and Vela had a short field. Still, Memorial’s defense held Vela to a field goal.
“For our defense to hold them, in a short field, to a field goal, as physical and as athletic as their offense is, that helped us build a little confidence,” PSJA Memorial coach Michael Uribe said. “That was a positive thing. We were able to score to take the 7-3 lead. We didn’t make it easy for them. We made them earn it.”
Vela stormed back and used a big second half to secure the 38-7 win over Memorial, but the Wolverines took a lot of positives out of the game.
“It felt good to have a lead and for our kids to be playing hard,” Uribe said. “Edinburg Vela is a great team, very athletic, very well coached. Our kids played for four quarters as hard as we could. We just weren’t able to stay with them. But it built up some confidence, and I was proud of their efforts.”
PSJA Memorial now sits at 2-5 overall and 2-2 in District 31-6A. With four teams tied for third place in the district standings at 2-2, Memorial feels it is in a good place as the season winds down.
“Four teams are fighting for two spots,” Uribe said. “We just have to control what we can control, which is one week at a time.”
Coming into the season, not many people expected the Wolverines to even be in this conversation. The Wolverines hadn’t won a game since Sept. 2015 and hadn’t prevailed in a district game since Oct. 2014. All that changed right away, as PSJA Memorial beat PSJA North in its first district game to close both of those losing streaks in one night.
“From the very beginning, we knew that the people that were going to support us the most were our PSJA Memorial family,” Uribe said. “We knew that we would have to drown out the noise as far as people telling us what we can and cannot do. We have to believe in ourselves and each other. That’s what we focus on.”
PSJA Memorial has another difficult test this week, as it faces PSJA High at 7:30 p.m. Friday at PSJA Stadium in Pharr.
“Them being 7-0 and undefeated in district, we know it’s going to be a tough task,” Uribe said. “But, our kids understand that they need to give 110 percent to give themselves a chance to be successful.”