BY NATE KOTISSO | THE MONITOR
The wintry weather that swept into the Rio Grande Valley earlier this week pushed the start times for some district games up one or two hours so players, coaches and fans could avoid the headache of traveling on potentially icy roads at night.
District 31-5A, however, was a different story. The four games scheduled to tip off at 7 p.m. Tuesday were postponed. The Mission Veterans at Laredo Cigarroa, Sharyland High at Laredo Martin and Rio Grande City at Roma games were moved to 7 p.m. Thursday, while Laredo Nixon’s trip to Sharyland Pioneer was moved to Saturday afternoon.
Because 31-5A is the only district with Valley and non-Valley teams sprinkled in, school districts erred on the side of caution.
Mission Veterans is one of the teams that will have a unique back-to-back this week, traveling to Laredo Cigarroa on Thursday and returning home to face Sharyland Pioneer the next night.
“Most of what we’ve done with the girls is discuss how important it is to stay focused with all the travel,” Mission Veterans coach Rafael Cantu Jr. said. “Physically, I think we’ll be fine. We’re 31 games into the season. We’re upbeat and energetic.
“There’s not a whole lot we’re going to change this week. It’s all mental from here on out: how we approach the trip and what we need to do our very best to get things going in our favor.”
Cantu didn’t want to overburden his players this week.
“We’ve talked about how challenging this will be, but I think the girls will meet it,” Cantu said. “We’ll come in late on Thursday, see what we can do on Friday, but we’ll definitely talk about Friday’s game at some point during the day.”
Mission Veterans’ game against Sharyland Pioneer (13-16, 3-6) will be Pioneer’s first game since losing at Laredo Cigarroa on Jan. 9. After facing the second-place Patriots on Friday, the Diamondbacks will play host to the first-place Laredo Nixon Mustangs (25-6, 10-0). Tipoff is set for 2:30 on Saturday afternoon.