By ROY HESS | The Brownsville Herald
The end of the 2018 football season came all too soon for the Pace Vikings.
They suffered a 42-7 loss to the Corpus Christi Ray Texans on Thursday night at Sams Memorial Stadium in the Class 5A Division I bi-district playoffs.
The vocal support of the home fans backing the Vikings at Sams wasn’t enough to prevent the Texans from unleashing a balanced rushing and passing attack that accounted for six touchdowns in the victory.
“Ray is a very talented team and we pretty much had to play a perfect game (to have a chance against them),” Pace coach Danny Pardo said. “Like I told our players, when you play a team that good and you make mistakes, they make you pay for them, and they made us pay.
“Still, this is something our guys can look back to and say, ‘That’s how much harder we’ve got to work to keep up with a team like that,'” Pardo added. “Ray has quite a bit of talent, and we just couldn’t match their talent.”
Although the Texans are known for their passing prowess behind senior quarterback Brad Breckenridge, they scored all three of their first-half TDs on the strength of runs. Breckenridge scored on first-quarter rushes of 76 and 17 yards and added a 1-yard TD plunge in the second period with 1:30 left before intermission to make it 21-0. Nathan Ancira added all the first-half extra points.
Breckenridge’s 76-yard sprint down the left sideline came on the first play of the game. Breckenridge, a stout QB with some speed, fended off the attempted tackles of several Pace defenders on his way to the end zone. After that, the Vikings had to play a catch-up game.
The Texans led 14-0 after the opening quarter and enjoyed a 21-0 advantage at the half. They took a 35-0 lead into the final period.
Breckenridge added another 1-yard TD run with 9:39 showing in the third period to make it 28-0.
It became 35-0 when Breckenridge threw a 54-yard TD bomb to Larry Rucker at the 4:03 mark of the third period.
Pace got a TD on a 2-yard run by Brandon Zapata with 9:02 left in the fourth period to make it 35-7.
Breckenridge threw his second TD pass of the night with 3:48 left in the game to Robert Vasquez. The scoring play covered 23 yards and made it 42-7 following the extra point.
The two TD passes Thursday gave Breckenridge 27 on the season. His four scoring runs Thursday gave him 15 TDs on the ground for the season. Breckenridge came into the game with more than 2,000 yards passing this season. He had only been intercepted twice on the year and the Vikings picked him off twice in the first half.
The District 15-5A Division I third-place Texans improved to 7-4 and now advance to next week’s area round of the playoffs to face San Antonio Wagner or San Antonio Harlandale.
Pace, the District 16-5A Division I runner-up, finished its season 7-4, making its second straight playoff appearance.
Pace was coming off last Saturday’s 57-28 win against Rio Grande City at Sams in the final regular-season game for both teams. The Vikings just weren’t able to carry the momentum from that victory into the postseason as they encountered an opponent with quite a prolific offensive attack on Thursday night.