The IWFA women’s football league recently released its playoff parings and two of the area’s three teams will be hitting the road for the first round.
Of the three, the No. 2 seeded Weslaco Jaguars are the only team ranked high enough to have home field advantage in their first game.
Or so they thought.
The Jaguars, who were set to play against the seventh seeded Laredo Phantasy on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. in Santa Maria, will have a sort of bi-week due to the Phantasy’s forfeiture of the game. The forfeit gives the Jaguars an easy pass to the second round where they will face off against the winner of the STX Phoenix and Harlingen Honeys game.
“Our character as a unit has been tested this season,” said Jaguars’ Stephanie Garcia. “In order for us to mentally prepare for the playoffs we have to dig deep individually and continue to come together as a family, and finish off strong despite of the overall outcome.”
Over the weekend the Jaguars faced off against one of the favorites to win the IWFA league championship in the San Antonio Legacy. Both teams entered the game undefeated; unfortunately, the Jaguars were on the wrong end of a 67-12 finish.
“In spite of the loss against a veteran team we as a young team can and will reflect on both the good we did as a team and work on the mistakes we made as a team,” said Garcia.
One team that will not have home field advantage is the Harlingen Honeys. The Honeys, who stared the season 0-3, will have some momentum heading into their first-round playoff game when they take on the Phoenix at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in Corpus Christi. The Honeys defeated the RGV Vixens 81-58 this past Saturday at Stookey Park to head into the postseason on a positive note.
The Honeys returned some key players just in time to head into the postseason.
After an exhausting Saturday that saw the No. 5 Vixens play two games, they will not have too much time to rest as the team drew the No. 4 seed Rockport Her-ricanes. The Vixens defeated the Laredo Phantasy 71-45 before dropping their evening game against the Harlingen Honeys.
Nevertheless, the team is mentally ready and focused for Saturday’s contest.
“We want to come out with a win,” said Vixens’ Dayanne Almazan. “We are a team full of weapons and talented women so our mentality is to play as a team and bring out each other’s strengths. We all have such heart for this game so we plan to fight till the end and leave it all out on the field.
“I’m not going to lie, playing two games was hard on us physically, but like I said we our team is full of strong women that have heart for this game so just pulled through. And while we did lose our second game, we will learn from our mistakes and make our corrections.”
