HIDALGO — Hidalgo head coach Zeke Morales found immediate success during his first year as the team’s head coach, leading the team to the state semifinals that year.
Following the state tournament, Morales knew he needed to do something to continue to build off the momentum.
“The first thing I thought about as soon as we were done was that I needed to create a tournament here in Hidalgo where I could have teams from all over the Valley play against our school,” Morales said. “I wanted to showcase our school, but I also wanted to get our team stronger and better. I wanted to play the best teams so it can help my players and they could see what it is to be competitive and what it takes to win and play against the best teams.”
Morales’ idea birthed the Copa La Frontera tournament 16 years ago, consisting of primarily sub-5A programs during its early years.
The tournament has grown since then, evolving into one of the Upper Valley’s biggest tournaments under Morales, who is now in his 17th season at the helm at Hidalgo.
“The idea 16 years ago was to start a tournament that was going to be competitive and highlight soccer in the northern part of the RGV,” Morales said. “I really do think that we have one of the most competitive tournaments in the Valley. We wanted to compete with the Brownsville tournament, which is first class as well and very competitive. … I’m just excited we’re still going with it. I look back 16 years ago, and we’ve gone so far now. It isn’t the same little tournament from then, where it was just 4As. Now it is a very competitive tournament and we’re really proud of that here in Hidalgo.”
The 16th annual Copa La Frontera field features a 16-team field with a mixture of 15 schools from across the Valley’s Class 4A-6A districts. They’ll be joined by reigning back-to-back Class 4A state champion Boerne as the lone non-RGV team participating in the event.
Of those 16 teams, 12 qualified for the postseason in their respective classes last season, including four district champions, two regional semifinalists and two regional quarterfinalists.
The 16 teams are divided into two groups of eight, with Group 1 set to compete in pool play at Bill Pate Stadium in Hidalgo and Group 2 set to play at PSJA High’s Stadium in Pharr.
Day 1 of the tournament features several key matchups to kick off pool play, including a contest between former state champions Hidalgo and Brownsville Rivera at noon Thursday to open Group 1 competition.
The Pirates and Raiders faced off to open pool play at the Brownsville ISD Soccer Tournament earlier this year, with Hidalgo taking the win 1-0.
Group play continues into Friday, when the Pirates take on Boerne at 5 p.m. in what could be a Region IV-4A final preview.
Last season the two teams met in the same tournament, with neither team able to gain the advantage and playing to a draw.
“The message is clear,” Morales said. “We want to play the best teams. We want to see if we can hang with the best teams, and we want to see if we can beat the best teams. Sure, this is a tournament and you want to see the bench, but the reality is this is also a good opportunity for our established players to step up and see how competitive it’ll be in the playoffs and state. Tomorrow when we play Rivera, we want to beat Rivera. We want to beat Los Fresnos. We want to beat Boerne. We want to beat them just as much as they want to beat us. At the end of the day, district is starting soon, and everyone wants to start with momentum. There is no better momentum-builder than winning games.”
Pool play concludes Friday, with the top two teams from each group advancing to the semifinals at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. The semifinal contests will take place simultaneously, one at each host site. The winner of each game advances to the championship game set for 7 p.m. at Bill Pate Stadium.
Day 1 of the Copa La Frontera begins at noon today. For the full Day 1 schedule, visit RGVSports.com.
