BY MARIO AGUIRRE | STAFF WRITER
LA JOYA — With Brownsville Rivera continually pressing Friday night, La Joya Juarez-Lincoln coach Victor Ramos saw an opportunity.
As the Raiders took one calculated risk after another, Ramos instructed his team to counter attack. The Huskies had scored in that fashion during the opening half, and Ramos wanted his players to recreate those two-on-one scenarios.
What came of it were two second-half goals by the Huskies, who took a convincing 3-0 win over the defending state champions at La Joya ISD Stadium.
It was almost a year ago that Juarez-Lincoln was bounced out of the playoffs by Rivera. At the time, the Huskies were rebuilding and they faced an uphill battle against a senior-laden club. With those roles reversed Friday, however, Juarez-Lincoln tried to exploit every defensive breakdown. Elias Adame scored minutes into their area round match, and Manuel Castrejon and Angel Garcia found the back of the net, as they setup a third-round battle against Brownsville Lopez.
“We just had to play more aggressive,” Ramos said. “You can’t hold the ball too long against a team like Rivera. It’s dangerous. So we just had to pass a little bit faster.
“We knew it was going to be a two-on-one or a advantage of that.”
At 7-5 in District 30-6A, the Huskies finished with the No. 2 seed, just onewin shy of matching last year’s record in what was supposed to be a rebuilding season.
At one point this year, they had three starters out with injuries, putting in doubt the state-title aspirations they’ve maintained since the start of the season.
But their decisive win Friday quelled some of those doubts, as the Huskies advance to the regional quarterfinals for the third time in four years.
“This is our dream,” senior goalkeeper Javier Garcia said, “to get to the state finals.”
Garcia came up huge Friday, recording eight saves. He had three during a four-minute span late in the match to preserve the clean sheet.
The onslaught of shots on goal was a desperate attempt by Brownsville Rivera to avoid elimination. It had fallen behind just three minutes into the game, after surrendering a goal by Adame from the 20-yard mark, before Castrejon and Garcia iced it.
“That’s just our style of play. We take a lot of risks,” Brownsville Rivera coach Salvador Garcia said. “And when you take chances, sometimes you’re going to win. And tonight it was unfortunate they got us.”
The Raiders graduated a bulk of the talent that led them to a state title last year. They won the final four games of the regular season this year to secure the fourth and final playoff spot in 32-6A, before beating PSJA Memorial, the 316A champions.
“We trained hard all week, and it paid off,” Garcia said. “We realized we needed to put more pressure on this team, and we did it. We knew that they were going to come hard because they beat us last year (on penalty kicks). They wanted to get the same win as last year.
“But we just put those goals away.”