LA FERIA — It looked like another long night for the La Feria Lions.
After losing to rivals Port Isabel in their last home game, the Kingsville King Brahmas scored three rapid touchdowns to jump out to an early 21-6 lead, leaving the La Feria fan base wondering if another upset was in the cards.
However, the Lions rallied and scored 28 unanswered points in the second quarter to defeat the Brahmas 42-21 Friday night at Lions Stadium in the Valley Morning Star’s Game of the Week.
“The guys played awesome tonight,” said La Feria head coach Oscar Salinas. “The team got down but didn’t shake. They stayed together, played hard and turned it around.”
With the win, La Feria improves to 6-1 overall and 2-0 in District 32-4A Division I. Meanwhile, Kingsville drops to 4-4, 0-2 heading into another difficult game against Grulla (3-4, 1-0) next week.
While Kingsville had the upper hand early, it was La Feria that struck first with a 24-yard quarterback scramble from Jonathan Leija to put the Lions up 6-0 after the missed extra point.
But the Brahmas respond with three quick touchdowns with Kingsville QB Nick Avelar scoring two rushing TDs from 10 and 24 yards out.
With the running game struggling, the Lions went to the air and found success.
Leija opened up the Brahmas’ defense with a 52-yard strike to Brandon Lee Perez who scored a few plays later on a 10-yard run with 8:12 remaining in the second quarter.
“I just said we’ve got to play our brand of football,” Salinas said. “I told the offense and defense to do what we do and we did it.
“We hadn’t thrown deep in a while, but today we hit some big passes over the top of their defense and that really loosened them up.”
And it didn’t stop there. The Lions went back to the air and hit on a 45-yard pass to Julian Trevino who scored a few plays later to tie the game at 21.
Leija finished the game with 200 passing yards, with 105 going to Perez and 95 yards going to Trevino.
The Lions defense stepped it up in the second half. After allowing 202 yards in the first half, the defense gave up only 110 total yards in the second.
Next up for La Feria is Hidalgo who is 1-6 overall and 0-1.
