PHARR — PSJA Memorial’s Isaac Mariscal plays linebacker, but during a Brownsville Porter punt on the first drive of their non-district game, he looked like a shortstop.
Mariscal caught a laser of a line-drive punt kicked in his direction and returned it for a 38-yard touchdown to put the Wolverines up early, and it was all PSJA Memorial from then on.
The Wolverines took down the Cowboys 53-20 on Thursday at PSJA Stadium in Pharr to improve to 2-0 on the year with 100 points scored across their first two games. Brownsville Porter drops to 0-2 this season.
“I catch the ball and I’m looking, I’m like I have the lane, then the coaches tell me, ‘go, go go,’” Mariscal said. “I’m still in utter shock because it’s a dream of mine. Not once have I touched the ball in a varsity football game, so it was fun.”
“We started real fast tonight and I think that’s a big thing. We talk about coming in every week and getting better,” PSJA Memorial head coach Will Littleton said. “Our big goal is to get ready for October 6, our first district game versus Southwest, so everything we’re doing right now is getting better for that. We scored over 100 points the first two weeks, and that’s something we’re very proud of, but the biggest thing we’re proud about is just getting better.”
PSJA Memorial raced out to a 22-0 lead after the punt return for a touchdown, a 49-yard touchdown run by Ryan Reyna and a 21-yard pass from Reyna to Robert Morales, all in under four minutes.
“Coach Littleton has put together an amazing game plan since the year he got here. The culture is changing and we just have to put our trust in Littleton — that’s how we can be great this year,” Mariscal said.
Emi Colunga was PSJA Memorial’s closer as he scored two second half touchdowns to go with 92 rushing yards. Miguel Resendiz and Viktor Rodriguez both ran for scores on the ground.
Brownsville Porter’s Antonio Gonzalez had a big day with nearly 100 rushing yards and a score, while quarterback Matthew Garcia scored two rushing touchdowns.
Brownsville Porter will look to enter the win column as the Cowboys face Donna North (1-0) at 7 p.m. Friday at Sams Memorial Stadium in Brownsville.
Next for PSJA Memorial is a tough test against Donna High (1-0) at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Bennie La Prade Stadium in Donna.
“We’ve built a program from the inside-out,” Littleton said. “The first couple years, we concentrated really, really hard on our sub-varsities, so we knew the future would be there. We had success on our sub-varsity the last couple years and now those guys are on varsity and they’re just a true example of how to build a program and develop kids.”
