BY JON R. LaFOLLETTE | STAFF WRITER
EDINBURG — Valley high school football fans will be disappointed to know the historic rivalry between Weslaco High and Donna High has been put on ice for at least the next two seasons.
They have the UIL to blame.
When area coaches arrived Monday at the Region One Education Service Center in Edinburg for district realignment, they brought along assumptions of which teams would be shuffled around the high school sports landscape and had possible non-district opponents in mind.
Such game-planning was for not, as the arrival of three Laredo schools in District 31-5A caused a ripple effect in scheduling for teams from Class 5A to 6A.
“That kind of rattled things up for us,” Weslaco High coach Tony Villarreal said. “People started changing their plans. We suddenly had three non-conference games open. So, we really had to scramble at the last minute.”
The UIL placed Laredo Nixon, Martin and Cigarroa into 31-5A, setting up a domino effect for Valley coaches. The Laredo schools created a nine-team district, improving the prospects of PJSA Southwest successfully petitioning to move from Class 5A to 6A.
Donna High coach Ramiro Leal says the exit of Southwest from District 32-5A was a factor in not scheduling the Panthers, a team Donna has played 86 times since 1922.
“We played Weslaco to prepare for the (slot-T offense), which was a style that Southwest liked to play,” Leal said. “With Southwest likely leaving, it didn’t really make sense for us to schedule an opponent like that. Coach Villarreal and I had some discussions, but we cordially decided not to play.”
Donna’s non-district schedule is a three-game tour against La Joya High, PSJA North and Valley View. Weslaco High moved from 31-6A to 32-6A along with Weslaco East. At press time, the Panthers had scheduled just one non-district opponent in Corpus Christi Carroll.
Another casualty of realignment is the budding rivalry between McAllen Memorial and Sharyland High. The two teams faced each other to kick-start each of the last two seasons, splitting the series.
Memorial coach Bill Littleton says he and Sharyland coach Ron Adame discussed a third and fourth year of competition to no avail in part because of Laredo schools being inserted in Sharyland’s district.
But Laredo’s new residency in 31-5A extended beyond the Mustangs and Rattlers. Littleton says possible non-district dates with Roma and Edinburg North fell through due to Laredo’s existence and the door it leaves open for Southwest.
Memorial’s tentative non-district schedule includes games against Sharyland Pioneer, Weslaco East, San Benito and Los Fresnos.
“That game against Los Fresnos was probably going to be a team from outside the Valley,” Littleton said. “The realignment put everyone in a bind and had a lot of people scrambling, but Los Fresnos said they’d take their bye week in the second week and play us in Week 4. An opportunity presented itself.”
Littleton and the Mustangs are familiar with San Benito and Weslaco East. The Mustangs scheduled the Greyhounds during realignment in 2014 and faced East when the teams were in District 31-5A.
Sharyland Pioneer coach Jason Wheeler experienced the wheeling-and-dealing of Monday first hand. In the morning, the Diamondbacks were slated for a Week 1 game against Weslaco High. Before dinner time, however, Wheeler and his team were set for an opening-night kickoff against McAllen Memorial.
Wheeler was not the only coach to pull such a move. At one point, the main room in the Service Center resembled the floor of the Wall Street Stock Exchange, with coaches standing shoulder-to-shoulder in an effort to put their respective teams in the best positions to succeed.
“Every game is going to be magnified now,” Wheeler said. “Not only because of the longer district schedule, but because of the shorter non-district schedule, too. We’ve only got so many opportunities to get things right before the games count.”