EDINBURG — It was the Jamal Polley show Thursday night as the Edinburg Vela senior running back rumbled for 300 yards and six rushing touchdowns to lead the SaberCats over the Weslaco East Wildcats 42-35 at Richard Flores Stadium in Edinburg.
Polley scored his touchdowns from distances of 4, 67, 69, 18 and 12 yards before scoring the game-winner on a 72-yard run down the right sideline to give Vela the 42-35 lead with 1:58 remaining.
“I just believed in my team, believed in my defense to get a stop and believed in my O-line. They had a hell of a game today and I love ‘em,” Polley said. “They had a hell of a game today, I love ‘em. The coaching staff made a game plan for us, it worked, and that’s what we kept going to.”
For the first 46 minutes of the game, Weslaco East found a way to answer Edinburg Vela’s big-play offense led by Polley.
Wildcats quarterback Alex Martinez threw for over 200 yards and scored three total touchdowns, including a spinning 4-yard run on 4th-and-3 to tie the game at 35 with 2:32 remaining in the fourth quarter.
East running back Devin Cantu scored a pair of rushing touchdowns and caught another, finishing with over 100-yards receiving. Receiver Margarito Pompa added a 23-yard touchdown catch just before the half to make it a 28-21 game with Vela in front.
East had a chance to tie the game late after Polley’s sixth touchdown of the night, but a stop on 4th-and-6 at the Vela 33-yard line set up the SaberCats for victory formation.
Weslaco East (1-2) will look to bounce back against Edinburg High (0-2) at 7 p.m. Thursday at Richard Flores Stadium in Edinburg.
Edinburg Vela (3-0) is set to open District 15-5A DI play at 7:30 p.m. Friday on the road against McAllen Memorial (2-0).
“I’m sure the fans enjoyed it more than the coaches did,” Edinburg Vela head coach John Campbell joked after the back-and-forth win. “Obviously very, very excited to come out with the win. We were a little bit disappointed because we had some questions that we wanted to get answered based off of last week, and it doesn’t look like we got them answered, but at the same time, you have to give a lot of credit to Weslaco East and their staff. Their kids showed a lot of toughness, a lot of grit and never quit. We scored pretty quickly at times and I was very impressed with how their kids never really gave up. That’s kind of the hallmark of the program. It was a good battle in a non-district game. Sometimes it’s really good to have a test like that to test the character and mental of your football team. We’ll chop that one up, non-district is over. We’re 0–0.”
