PHARR — PSJA North’s perfect run through the regular season and bi-district, area and regional semifinal rounds of the playoffs has carried them into the Region IV-5A Division I final for the first time in program history.
The Raiders are slated to face Corpus Christi Veterans at 6 p.m. Saturday at Buccaneer Stadium in Corpus Christi.
PSJA North (13-0) is just the third team from the Rio Grande Valley in the past decade to reach a regional final, joining Mission Veterans in 2018 and Sharyland Pioneer in 2020, both of which lost their Round 4 playoff matchups. A victory Saturday would make the Raiders the first RGV team to reach the state semifinals since Port Isabel accomplished the feat in 2003.
“It’s what they play for. It’s what we coach for,” PSJA North seventh-year head coach Marcus Kaufmann said of the opportunity to be in a regional final. “We coach and play for these types of games, to try to get to these rounds of the playoffs to where everybody’s watching. All these guys want the eyes on them, they’re onthem now. Let’s see what we can do when everybody’s watching.”
Those Patriots and Diamondbacks teams lined up in shotgun and threw the ball all around the yard with pass-heavy offenses that put up numbers which ranked amongst the best in the state.
They do things a little differently at PSJA North.
It all starts in the trenches for the Raiders, who set the tone with an overpowering rushing attack and dominant defense. Winning the battle at the line of scrimmage, both offensively and defensively, is what’s helped lift PSJA North to new heights.
“The front five on offense and front four on defense are doing an amazing job of controlling things on both sides of the ball, and it’s paid dividends all year,” Kaufmann said.
The Raiders’ offensive line is made up of juniors Dante Garcia at left tackle, Adaen Sanchez at left guard, Joe Derek Vecchio at center, Agustin Renteria at right guard and sophomore right tackle Jordan Brewster. All five are listed as 6 feet tall or better, and their average weight is 274 pounds.
Together, those five push defenses off the ball and allow an arsenal of weapons to go to work.
“For the most part, the running backs go off of us. If we’re playing with aggression going whistle to whistle, that pumps them up and gets them going,” Garcia said.“They know that we’re blocking for them and they’re going to run for us. Aggression is a big part of the game. You need aggression to succeed. It’s a big factor inthe game of football.”
The Raiders’ offense enters Round 4 averaging 495.1 yards per game this season. Fullback Jason Montez leads PSJA North with 1,609 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns. Freshman running back Ethan Guerra ranks second on the team with 1,059 yards and 12 touchdowns. Junior quarterback Ale Aparicio has run for 930 yards and a team-high 16 touchdowns, and running back Jaden Fuentes has added 705 yards and nine touchdowns this season.
“They set the tone in many ways. They go out there on the first play and get their pancakes,” Aparicio said about the Raiders’ offensive line. “It can be third-and-20, and they’ll still go out and get their pancakes. They never put their head down no matter the situation. They’re always going to find ways to create space for me and our backs.”
The Raiders can air it out, too. Aparicio has thrown for 1,530 yards and 19 touchdowns to leading receivers Diego Aparicio, Julius Arredondo, Andre Matamoros, Markus Rendon and Isaac Willingham.
Defensively, PSJA North has limited opponents to less than 200 yards per game and is coming off back-to-back lights-out performances in the second and third round of the playoffs.
Both Corpus Christi Miller and Brownsville Veterans, the Raiders’ second- and third-round opponents, respectively, entered their matchups with PSJA North averaging 49 points per game or better.
The Raiders held Miller to 14 points in a 35-14 area round win. After Brownsville Veterans dropped 74 points in its area-round game against Victoria West, PSJA North held the Chargers to 15 points in a 35-15 regional semifinal victory to advance to this week’s regional final.
“It’s all about playing aggressively and playing through all four quarters,” said sophomore Stephen Garza, PSJA North’s leading tackler with 153 total stops.
A defensive line made up of Danny Garcia, Marcus Hernandez, Andrew Rodriguez and Salvador Sanchez wreaks havoc up front. Their play allows Garza and fellow linebackers Mikey Gonzales (149 tackles, 24 tackles for loss), Jesse Montez (120 tackles, 17 tackles for loss) and Jose Alanis (38 tackles, eight tackles for loss) to shoot through the blockers and play sideline-to-sideline defensively.
PSJA North doesn’t just preach hard-nosed defense, the Raiders live it with the label “Blackshirt Defense.”
Its secondary members have been able to slow passing attacks and are unafraid to step up in run defense to stop ball carriers in their tracks. Leroy Palacios (57 tackles), Amando Ramirez (71 tackles) Ethan Montemayor (28 tackles) and Sean Villegas (66 tackles) fly around the PSJA North defensive backfield. Together, they limited Corpus Christi Miller wide receiver Lonnie Adkism, who was recently nominated for Dave Campbell’s Mr. Texas Football award due to his outstanding play, to just 70 yards receiving during their area-round matchup.
“It’s all about that dog mentality. We’re going to come and out do what we do best and play like dogs,” Palacios said. “We put in the work throughout the season, hadour ups and downs, injuries and stuff, but we all picked each other up to get here.”
PSJA North was determined to reach Round 4 of the playoffs since the moment its 2021 campaign ended at the hands of Austin Westlake, which went on to win the Class 6A Division II state championship. Now that the Raiders are here, they hope to push it one step farther and enter even rarer territory by becoming the first Valley team in 19 years to qualify for the state semifinals.
“We’re really proud of what we’ve been able to do and be in the position that we’re in right now. We’re just here to represent and show what the Valley is all about, what Raider nation is all about,” Arredondo said.
