By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
Season-opening victories have a way of bringing a smile to the face of a football coach, at least for a little while.
There were a number of smiles to go around among Metro-area coaches last week as Hanna, Porter, Brownsville Veterans Memorial, Los Fresnos and Port Isabel emerged from the first weekend of the season with 1-0 records.
It was a far better showing than one year ago when only St. Joseph Academy and Port Isabel of the nine Metro-area teams broke into the win column to start off the season.
Last week, Brownsville Veterans upset preseason No. 6 Donna High 49-42, Hanna downed Edinburg Economedes 21-14, Los Fresnos defeated Edinburg North 34-14, Porter triumphed over Progreso 35-9 and Port Isabel won against Grulla 31-19.
Metro-area teams winding up on the other side of things were Rivera losing to Weslaco East 53-21, Lopez falling to La Joya Palmview 53-7, Pace being defeated by Edinburg Vela 72-27 and SJA being edged by Raymondville 55-45.
The Rivera Raiders played on the road last Thursday night and they’ll be the home team at 7 p.m. Thursday at Sams Memorial Stadium for their second game, which is against Edinburg North.
Rivera held its own early against Weslaco East last week and even led 14-0 after one quarter. But after that, the Wildcats took charge and outscored the Raiders 53-7 the rest of the way.
The Raiders surrendered the ball four times on interceptions, which didn’t please Rivera coach Tom Chavez at all.
“We made a lot of mistakes (against Weslaco East),” Chavez said. “We did some good things but we did a lot more bad things, and we have to work on correcting that.
“If I felt good about anything, it was that our guys played hard and gave it all they had,” Chavez added. “We just made too many mistakes against a pretty good team.”
Last week, the Raiders saw a new starter emerge at quarterback in senior Angel Tolentino, who rushed for 118 yards and one touchdown while passing for 113 yards and another score. He threw a pair of interceptions, however.
Now the Raiders are going up against Edinburg North, a team that beat them 24-21 in overtime in Edinburg last season.
The Cougars are searching for their own answers after losing to Los Fresnos 34-14 last week.
“We’re kind of two teams in the same situation,” Chavez said. “Like us, they made a few mistakes that hurt them (in their season opener). They’re working on getting better, and so are we.”
The Rivera-Edinburg North game is the only one set for Thursday involving a Metro-area ballclub.
Regarding Metro-area teams at 7:30 p.m. Friday, it’s Edcouch-Elsa (1-0) at Los Fresnos (1-0) as the Falcons debut on their new artificial surface at Leo Aguilar Memorial Stadium, Mission High (0-1) vs. Hanna (1-0) at Sams, Lyford (1-0) in Brownsville to play SJA (0-1) at Canales Field and Port Isabel (1-0) at Rio Grande City (1-0).
Saturday’s schedule has the “Battle of Southmost” on tap at 1 p.m. at Sams as Lopez (0-1) plays Porter (1-0), Brownsville Veterans (1-0) faces PSJA North (1-0) at 6 p.m. at PSJA Stadium and Sharyland Pioneer (1-0) battles Pace (0-1) at 7 p.m. at Sams.
Meanwhile, the smiles worn last week by winning local coaches, at least briefly, have since become the looks of determination again as they prepare for the upcoming second round of games.
The coaches seem to be in agreement that the positive things they saw from their teams last week are definitely something they can build upon for the rest of the season.
“I was proud of our team for getting off to a good start against a solid football team (in Donna High),” Brownsville Veterans coach David Cantu said. “Also, I was proud of our team for staying poised in the fourth quarter to come out with the (49-42) victory after a big push by Donna.”
Tom Campos was equally proud of his squad at Porter, having seen his Cowboys win 35-9 on the road after losing 7-0 to Progreso at Sams last year to open the season in a turnover-marred contest.
“We had an early mishap with a poor snap to our punter, and Progreso scored on its very first play from scrimmage,” Campos said. “It could have been like last year and we could have come unraveled very quickly, but that was the last turnover we had. We scored on every possession after that, and the defense only gave up three more points and shut them out in the second half.
“We didn’t play a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination, but the improvement from last season to this season is evident,” Campos added.
Porter running back George Gutierrez was an offensive standout as he rushed for 186 yards and three TDs on 23 carries.
“George did very well,” Campos said. “Honestly, our offensive line was awesome. Our guys completely wore out Progreso’s defense.”
Hanna coach Rene Medrano said he liked what he saw on both sides of the ball by his team during its 21-14 triumph over Economedes.
“I thought we came out and had some good moments to make some good things happen (offensively),” Medrano said. “We played well when we needed to.
“I liked that our defense made some crucial stops in crucial situations,” he added. “Now we have to go out and prepare and focus on our jobs so we can be ready (for Mission High).”
Port Isabel coach Monty Stumbaugh expressed much the same sentiment.
“It felt good to win (our season opener),” Stumbaugh said. “We fought through some mistakes (to get the win), so I’m proud of our guys. Now we just have to keep trying to get better every day.”
Roy Hess covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @HessRgehess.