BY GREG LUCA | STAFF WRITER
After beginning the season as relative unknowns, La Joya Palmview’s Joel Piña and Roma’s Ramon Espinoza have established themselves as two of the Valley’s best and most productive backs.
Entering Week 4, Piña and Espinoza are the only two rushers in the Valley with 11 touchdowns. The two will have the chance to go head to head as Roma and Palmview square off at 7:30 tonight at La Joya ISD Stadium.
“You can’t go wrong with either one,” Roma coach Max Habecker Jr. said.
Espinoza, the smaller and quicker of the two, has racked up more yardage to this point, rushing 94 times for 809 yards.
Piña, a bigger and more powerful runner, has 697 yards on 57 carries.
“They’re both spectacular backs,” Habecker said. “They’re both spectacular in their own way.”
The one major commonality Habecker noticed between the two is vision. Piña and Espinoza both excel at seeing the holes in the defense and knowing when to attack with a cutback or when to bounce the run to the outside.
Requenez echoed the sentiment.
“(Espinoza) is just like our running back in that he has real good vision,” Requenez said. “It’s all about his vision. Their blocking style is perfect for him. He finds the hole, and he attacks it.”
The two teams followed a similar path last season, riding strong defenses and rushing attacks to the first playoff appearances in either program’s history.
The new season has brought more of the same, with Palmview picking up 80.7 percent of its total offense on the ground and Roma rushing for 94 percent of its total yardage.
As a result, both coaches said the game would come down to whichever team was more physical and handled its assignments on defense.
“They’re like us. They’re a ground-and-pound team,” Requenez said. “They want to wear you down, just like we do. That’s what really stands out.”
For Palmview, tonight’s game is a chance to bounce back after being upset 35-34 in overtime against Rio Grande City last week. Although Palmview quarterback Andrew Puente threw for 196 yards, the Lobos struggled to overcome some key injuries on both sides of the ball. Rio Grande City picked up 357 yards of total offense.
“I was happy with my defense, it was just a couple of miscues here and there,” Requenez said. “I blame us as coaches. We lost the game for the kids. It wasn’t the other way around. … We had some key components missing, which kind of showed in that game.”
For Roma, Habecker said the matchup is another chance to test his group against a bigger team and to continue to build momentum heading toward District 31-5A play next week.
The Gladiators also have a chance to go 4-0 for the first time in program history, but Habecker isn’t paying much attention to that milestone.
“Maybe at the end of the season,” Habecker said. “Right now, we’re just focused on going 1-0 this week.”