Cards top McHi

HARLINGEN — If Harlingen wanted to prove a point, they did.

At least according to quarterback Mack "The Knife" Sanchez.

Making his first start for the Harlingen Cardinals, Sanchez rushed for three touchdowns and threw for one more as the No. 1 Cardinals ran past No. 8 McAllen 59-20 Friday night at Boggus Stadium in the Valley Morning Star-The Monitor's Game of the Week.

"I wasn't expecting this," Sanchez said. "But I'm really excited with what we all did here tonight. Even the defense scored a couple of times. We wanted to prove a point tonight being ranked No. 1 and I think we did here tonight. All of us as a team, we proved a point."

Sanchez's point came courtesy of 126 yards rushing and three scores on 12 carries. Sanchez also passed for 144 yards completing eight-of-10 pass attempts and one TD strike to Luke Lucio.

Sanchez is human, however, and threw two interceptions. Those were his only incompletions of the game.

"For his first day, Mack did pretty good," Harlingen head coach Manny Gomez said. "I'd give him a 92. I'm proud of him and of everyone else. This was a great win for the team."

Sanchez led Harlingen's offense to a 474-yard effort on opening night.

The defense was just as impressive scoring twice on the night.

Sackman Mean Mingo Rincon recorded two sacks and caused one fumble.

After a Grant Gorman field goal with 9:25 in the first started the points storm, Sanchez hit Lucio with a 23-yard TD pass.

Defensive tackle Tipper Ramirez then snagged a shuffle pass by McHi QB Austin Griffith and ran it 18 yards for the score.

Sanchez scored on runs of 11 and 23 yards in the second quarter to give Harlingen a 31-14 halftime advantage.

McHi scored on 12-yard pass from Griffith to Adam Ramos and Trey Dube later scored on a two-yard run late in the second quarter.

Sanchez completed the hat trick in the third with a 16-yard slicer up the middle to make it 38-14 with Gorman's PAT.

Harlingen's next scoring sequence was one for the highlights.

After Sanchez kept it and attempted to scramble, he pitched it to running back Pablo Garza ala sandlot football.

Garza then broke free for a 63-yard scoring run to make it 45-14 at that juncture.

Garza finished with 125 yards rushing and one score on 11 carries.

The pair almost pulled off the same broken play heroics to start the game.

"We (Pablo and I) talked before the game and Pablo told me we were going to do crazy things out there," said Sanchez, noting that he and Garza are best friends. "After he pitched it to me in the first I thought this is going to be fun."

Later in the third, Nick Aviles scooped up a fumble caused by Rincon and ran it back 22 yards for a score. Aviles slowed down at the one-yard line and made a back flip into the end zone.

"I'm not tot happy about that flip there by Nick," Gomez said "But these guys are having fun and I'll have to address that."

Backup RB Sean Hernandez added a score in the fourth with 2:37 left in the game on a 26-yard jaunt.
Dube added a 13-yard TD run with 3:38 left in the game too.

Eladio Jaimez covers District 31-5A for Valley Freedom Newspapers.