Los Frenos pulls away from Rivera in second half

After a sluggish first half, the Los Fresnos Falcons came out of the locker room as a completely different team — more like the one they’re used to being.

The Falcons scored on four of their first five possessions during the second half, which included two touchdowns runs by Eric Castillo — and Aaron Rangel scored three overall touchdowns as Los Fresnos defeated the Raiders 52-34 on Thursday night at Sams Stadium.

"Overall it was a sloppy game," Falcons coach Scott Ford.　 "We started the third quarter really well but Rivera made a run on us at the end, and you’ve got to give them credit for that — they played 40 minutes of football. We’re 4-1 overall and 2-0 in district. We need to get to work, regroup and get better next week."

Down 24-14 at halftime, the Raiders started the second half with the ball and momentum, but Los Fresnos’ defense suffocated Rivera, forcing a three-and-out, and then Nate Nevarez failed to get a punt off and was tackled at his own 1.

Emilio Hernandez punched it in on the next play, diving for a 1-yard score. During the next two drives Castillo was under center, he only needed one play to score with touchdown runs of 37 and 38 yards, putting the game away at 52-14 with 15 seconds left in the third quarter.

Rangel scored the first two touchdown of the games for the Falcons, and his third was scored on the Falcons’ third possession of the second half. It was a 58-yard touchdown toss from Hernandez with 2:35 remaining in the third quarter.

Rivera was able to run the ball effectively on the Falcons as Nevarez had 15 carries for 190 yards and three touchdowns, including both Rivera scores during the first half.

Nevarez broke a 22-yard run and David Molina grabbed a 79-yard TD pass from Jesse Cisneros during the fourth quarter. Juan Reyes tacked on another score, taking a fumble from Kristin Martinez 37 yards to pay dirt with 24 seconds left in the game.

　The Raiders committed two turnovers during the first half and two during the second half, and the Falcons capitalized with touchdowns each time. Rivera coach Jim Helms knows his team cannot afford to giftwrap points if it expects to win.

"We just can’t give them 28 points and expect to beat a good team like Los Fresnos," he said. "We give them two right off the bat in the second half, and they took advantage. Hopefully we can learn from this and improve from 1-1 in district."

The Falcons jumped on the Raiders early as Aaron Rangel capped Los Fresnos’ opening drive with a 22-yard touchdown run on its fifth play from scrimmage.

Los Fresnos’ defense then blocked Rivera’s punt on the Raiders’ first possession, and two plays later Rangel ran a 13-yard cross pattern to the edge of the end zone to put the Falcons up 14-0 with 7:41 in the first quarter.

Rivera seemed poised to answer, marching 70 yards on 15 plays, but it resulted in no points as Saul Cortez missed　a 27-yard field goal. Nevarez, though, got Rivera back in the game with a 72-yard touchdown run out of the wildcat formation. He took the direct snap untouched down the sidelines for a 14-7 deficit with 9:55 to play in the second quarter.

Castillo tacked on seven more points on a 15-yard scamper, and then Robert Degollado drilled a 38-yard field goal as time expired.

Louie Vera covers District 32-5A football for Valley Freedom Newspapers. You can reach him at (956) 982-6663 or via e-mail at lvera@brownsvilleherald.com.