McAllen Memorial's defense holds off pesky PSJA High team

McALLEN — McAllen Memorial coach Bill Littleton said PSJA High played his team’s kind of football and almost witnessed an upset.

“They kept the football away from us and kept our defense on the field,” said Littleton, whose team escaped with a 24-21 win Friday at McAllen Veterans Memorial Stadium. “Our defense played a lot of plays tonight. (PSJA running back Gilbert Espino) is a load. He’s hard to get down.”

Espino, who rushed for 149 yards and two touchdowns, and the Bears offense had a tired Mustangs defense on the ropes late in the game.

Trailing 17-14, the Bears (0-3) had a second-and-11 at the Mustangs 20 with 1:48 left when a pitch to halfback Ruben Garcia was fumbled. Mustangs defender Steven Attwood picked up the loose ball and helped 3-0 Memorial to breathe a sigh of relief.

“That was a game-changing play right there,” Attwood said. “It affected the game.”

Attwood and the Mustangs defense was on the field for 66 Bears plays. By comparison, Memorial ran only 44.

“We were out there quite a bit,” Attwood said. “We kind of held it through. We do a good job of conditioning so I think we did a pretty good job with that.”

The Mustangs scored on their first two possessions to build an early 14-0 lead, including a 63-yard TD run by Gabe Phillips (117 yards, TD). But they had trouble moving the ball after that.

“We knew we spotted them 14 points,” Bears coach Mel Rios said. “After that, I felt that our defense was playing well. We made good stops.”

Memorial’s offense finally mustered a decent drive that ended in a 29-yard field goal by David De La Garza that gave the home team a 17-14 edge with 6:21 left in the game.

On the ensuing Bears possession, PSJA was driving when the fumble occurred.

The Mustangs then added an insurance score when quarterback Matthew Kaufmann connected with Andrew Salinas for a 79-yard TD pass with 51 seconds left for a 24-14 lead.

“They had the momentum, but you have to make plays,” Littleton said. “We made a play that caused the fumble and we got down on it. We also had that big first down for a touchdown.”

Bears scored one more time on a 4-yard TD pass from QB Johnny Lopez to Nacho Gonzalez but that was with 5 seconds left.

Peter Rasmussen covers District 30-5A football for Valley Freedom Newspapers. You can reach him at (956) 683-4448.