MARK MOLINA | STAFF WRITER
The Pace Vikings spent a lot of this season growing up, especially on the defensive side of the ball thanks to a tough District 16-5A Division I.
Now, Vikings will face their toughest challenge yet when they take on the undefeated Corpus Christi Miller Buccaneers in a Class 5A bi-district matchup slated for 7:30 p.m. tonight at Corpus Christi’s Buc Stadium.
The Vikings are the underdogs, but coach Danny Pardo said his team’s demeanor this week doesn’t tell that story.
“ Like I’ve said before, we’re still young, but we’re not inexperienced anymore,” Pardo said. “These kids have been in a lot of games. And I don’t know if they’re too young to realize what they are going against, but they’re pretty upbeat. We had a great practice Tuesday and (Wednesday) we polished up and we’ll be ready to go tomorrow.”
What awaits the Vikings is a Bucs offense that has scored in bunches and with relative ease, averaging slightly more than 57 points per game and 552 yards per game.
Leading the charge for Miller is junior quarterback Andrew Body, who has thrown for 3,127 yards and 37 touchdowns with just one interception while completing 67 percent of his passes.
Top targets for Body are senior receivers Ralph Rodriguez (49-834, 14 TDs), Cassius Clay (51-853, 7 TDs) and junior Adraean Loyd (934 yards, 7 TDs). In the backfield, sophomore McCullion Williams has rushed for 1,119 yards and 13 touchdowns, so Pace’s defense, which has racked up 19 sacks and nine turnovers this season, will have a tall task in front of them.
“ There’s a reason why they’re No. 1 (in their district),” Pardo said. “They’re pretty good and talent-wise, they’re big, they’re calm and fast. They’re well-coached and we’re going to have our hands full. We have to try to take advantage of some little things that we can find that could possibly work against them. Our kids are used to that all season long, but they’ll fight and see what happens.”
Pace will look to combat the high-scoring Bucs with their running game, led by senior Dylan Barron and quarterback Jose Banda.
Barron rushed for 1, 057 yards in 12 touchdowns during the regular season and has scored at least one touchdown in nine of the ten games.
Banda has proved valuable on the grown and through the air, passing for 1, 498 yards and rushing for 546 more with 13 total scores.
“ We want to make this game go as fast as we can and control the ball as much as we can,” Pardo said. “That’s kind of been our philosophy, to control the game as much as we can and keep our defense off the field as much as possible. We will definitely try to do what we have done the last couple of weeks, which is run Dylan (Barron) as much as we can with Matthew Cuellar and Banda running as well. We’ll throw when we have to here and there and see if we can keep the ball from (Miller) as much as we can.”