ROMA — The Roma Gladiators erased a 15-point halftime deficit to top Sharyland Pioneer 48-41 in a thriller Friday at Gladiator Arena.
Roma is now 7-0 for the first time in program history and 2-0 in District 16-5A DII. The loss is Sharyland Pioneer’s first of the year as the Diamondbacks fall to 6-1 and 1-1 in district.
Roma senior running back Isaac Lozano scored five touchdowns, including the game-winner on a 22-yard run with three minutes left in the fourth quarter.
“It means a lot, man. We came back after halftime, didn’t put our heads down and kept pushing,” Lozano said. “The crowd was amazing. Seeing the end zone wide open (on the game-winning touchdown), it was a crazy feeling.”
Quarterback David Galan added a pair of rushing touchdowns for the Gladiators.
“We wanted to keep pushing and make it to 7-0. I’m very glad. We all worked hard for this and we’ve proved everybody wrong,” Galan said.
The Roma defense held the Diamondbacks to just seven second-half points. Junior defensive back Erick Saldana came up with the game-sealing interception off a deflection with 2:22 to play, setting up the Gladiators for victory formation. Luis Peña also had a key interception in the first half to help spark Roma.
“At first, we had a lot of adversity in the first half. Changed some stuff at halftime, came back and did what we had to do,” Saldana said. “Stopped them, I believe they only scored once in the second half, and that’s how we did it.”
Pioneer running back Dylan Tijerina finished with three touchdown runs. Quarterback Julian Valdez tossed two touchdown passes to Leo Espinoza and ran for another 75-yard score to put the Diamondbacks ahead 41-40 with 11:36 remaining.
Roma will now face PSJA Memorial (7-0, 2-0) at 7 p.m. Thursday at PSJA Stadium in Pharr in another battle of unbeaten teams.
Next for Pioneer is PSJA Southwest (1-6, 0-2) at 7 p.m. Friday at Richard Thompson Stadium in Mission.
