By EDWARD SEVERN
HARLINGEN — The Harlingen South Hawks and new coach Israel Gonzalez opened their 2021 campaign with a convincing 34-9 win over the Brownsville Veterans Memorial Chargers on Friday night at Boggus Stadium.
“We feel great,” Gonzalez said. “I think the kids came out and executed early. Ran into some speed bumps in the second half, but I think that is some stuff we can work on. Overall, I am proud of their effort and that we were able to come out with a win.”
The Hawks jumped on the Chargers early with an extremely proficient opening drive, resulting in a 12-yard touchdown by senior running back Jeremiah Rivera.
The Chargers fumbled away their opening possession, and the Hawks capitalized with a 6-yard touchdown run by running back Marcos Gonzalez, putting the Hawks up 14 with only 6 minutes off the clock.
Senior quarterback Xander Casarez and the Hawks’ offense were mixing the short passing game and running game well, wearing down the Chargers. Casarez found receiver Elias Ledesma for a 22-yard touchdown during the second quarter. Ledesma beat the defenders to the outside after receiving the ball in the flat.
The Chargers got on the board with a field goal after a good drive stalled with goal-to-go.
Two big plays by Rivera set up another Ledesma receiving touchdown, this time with only 0.4 seconds before halftime. Ledesma’s 7-yard touchdown capped off a more than 95-yard drive by South, which led 28-3 at half.
Seniors Andrew Luna and Levi Ince came up big for the Hawks’ defense to begin the second half by stopping the Chargers fullback in the backfield on a fourth-down attempt. The next play, South again made the Chargers pay as Rivera took a short pass to the house for 46 yards. South missed the point-after attempt and led 34-3.
“We are going to take what the defense gives us, and we knew that they were going to be able to give us some of the quick game and we took advantage of it early,” Gonzalez said about the scheme. “We knew that would soften up the box, and (we) were able to get some big run plays later on.”
Brownsville Veterans scored its touchdown during the third quarter, a 27-yard reception courtesy of Jay Valdez.
The Hawks’ stout defense helped them run out the clock in the fourth quarter. The Chargers never gave up and put in a solid effort against a 32-6A team that has a plethora of starting seniors.
“They are a good football team. They exposed some of the things we need to work on, and we are going to adjust that,” Brownsville Veterans coach Kelley Lee said.
“It is a short week for us, we play Thursday. They were the winners, and we could either be losers or learners and we want to be a learner. We will improve and address the mistakes in practice, and hopefully play better on Thursday.”
Next week, the Hawks travel to take on Sharyland Pioneer, and Brownsville Veterans faces Porter in those teams’ first district game Thursday night.
