Lady Cards open district play with 4-2 victory over Edinburg

HARLINGEN — The Lady Cardinals kicked off the District 31-5A season with a decisive win over the Edinburg Lady Bobcats 4-2 at Harlingen High School on Tuesday night.

Though the final score may suggest that the game was completely dominated by the Lady Cards, the game was anything but an easy win.

Edinburg controlled the ball for most of the first half, forcing Harlingen into a defensive game early on.

"It took us a little while to get into it," said Harlingen head coach Phillip Oxford. "But once we settled down we were OK."

Helping to make things OK for the Lady Cardinals was the play of junior forward April Compean, who accounted for all of Harlingen’s goals.

"She’s awesome," said Oxford. "But she didn’t do it by herself."

Indeed, Compean was assisted twice by senior right-wing Leah Lucio, who set up the first goal of the game with 4:59 left in the first half.

Lucio took a cross, made a great move on the backline and sent her own cross just over the outstretched arms of Edinburg freshman keeper Mayra Ibarra and was punched in by Compean to put Harlingen up 1-0.

The score remained 1-0 until the second half when, with 22:22 left, Edinburg’s Mercedes Mendoza evened the score 1-1 when she drilled a left-footed shot past Harlingen keeper Kayak Candia-Almanac.

Compean would respond with 17:35 left by finishing a breakaway, sending the ball across the face of the keeper with a right foot that sailed into the right side of the net, 2-1.

With 5:25 left in the game, it seemed as though Compeon sealed the victory when she put Harlingen up 3-1 as she cleaned up a rebound by Tavi Contreras.

However, it only took Edinburg a minute to respond as Diana Cobarruvias set up a goal with 4:21 left to make it a one-point game, 2-3.

"We had some opportunities but didn’t finish," said Edinburg head coach Martin Gonzales. "We’re a young team, we’ll get better, I give Harlingen a lot of credit, they’re a good team."

Compean would finally put the Harlingen squad’s mind at ease as she put the nail in the coffin, 4-2.

The goal came as she took a through ball placed behind the Edinburg defense by Lucio and again finished with her right foot into the right side of the goal.

"They were a lot tougher than I thought they were," said Oxford. "They’re going to be a good team."