It was clear Thursday night that Oscar Lozoya’s mentality was quality over quantity.
The Raiders’ senior wide receiver reeled in three touchdowns on four receptions, and senior running back Quintae Smith-Barrett added a pair of scores on the ground as Rivera routed Porter 35-14 in The Brownsville Herald’s Game of the Week at Sams Memorial Stadium.
“I was going hard every play and my quarterback (senior Nicholas Blanco) and I have played together since elementary and we have that chemistry,” Lozoya said. “He just hit me when I was open. It’s a big part of our game, we trust each other and we attacked the weak spots in (Porter’s) zone and we scored.”
Lozoya’s four catches totaled just 86 yards, but he made his mark in the end zone. Smith-Barrett finished with 187 yards rushing and two scores as the Rivera racked up over 300 yards of offense in the non-district contest.
The Raider defense did the rest, as it forced two fumbles while Daniel Limon added an interception to stall a Porter drive late in the second half.
Rivera (1-0) got off to a needed quick start, scoring on its first two drives of the game.
On the Raiders’ first possession, Blanco hit Lozoya on a 34-yard strike to take an early 7-0 lead less than four minutes into the game.
Rivera forced Porter (0-1) to fumble at its own 33-yard line and the Raiders capitalized on the miscue with a 4-yard run for a touchdown by Smith-Barrett to give Rivera a 14-0 lead with 6:08 to play in the opening quarter.
“It was the turnovers that were costly,” Porter coach Carlos Uresti said. “After the first turnover it felt like we were playing catch up. We’re going to run the ball, so we can’t fall behind by a lot. Throwing the ball is not what we emphasize. We got out of our comfort zone and start throwing the ball … but we have to get better at throwing it.”
Porter got one of those back, as it finished its next drive with a 6-yard touchdown run by Jose Villalon to cut the deficit in half with 1:04 left in the first quarter.
Both teams went scoreless in the second quarter and Rivera would go into halftime with a 14-7 edge.
The second half was much of the same for the Raiders, as Smith-Barrett kept the offense going with a 2-yard scoring spurt to give his team a 21-7 advantage midway through the third quarter.
Porter answered quickly with a 70-yard touchdown pass from Kevin Garcia to Ramiro Martinez less than 20 seconds later to bring itself within seven once again.
From there, however, the Rivera defense stiffened.
“They had momentum and we got some momentum back,” Rivera coach Tom Chavez said. “The boys settled down a little bit and defensively … I’m proud of them, they grinded it out, gave us opportunities on offense.”
Blanco and Lozoya made sure the Cowboys wouldn’t catch up with a pair of fourth quarter touchdowns. Blanco hit Lozoya on a 25-yard strike to make it 28-14 and after a short Cowboys punt gave the Raiders good field position just outside the red zone, they connected again on a 21-yard toss to put the game out of reach.
“We’ve been working hard on our offense, we have to continue that,” Chavez said. “(The game) could have been the other way. We persevered in the fourth quarter.
“I’m proud of the guys.”
Uresti felt his team got tired late in the second half with several players playing on both sides of the ball.
“The kids gave it all they had,” he said. “Maybe we need to not utilize certain kids going both ways, we just have to learn from the film. We ran out of gas at the end and obviously turnovers caused us to fall behind.”
Rivera, who topped Porter 14-7 in the 2016 season opener, was happy to start the season on a good note once again and hopes to build from it. The Raiders finished 1-9 last fall but are hoping Thursday’s win will kickstart the team in the right direction.
“It’s good, were 1-0 and we’re looking forward to the next game,” Lozoya said. “We don’t want what happened last year to happen again.”
Andrew Crum covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6629 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter, he’s @andrewmcrum.