Los Fresnos makes bold statement against PSJA High

SAN JUAN – The only thing the Los Fresnos Falcons could do entering the new season was prove to skeptics they deserved its No. 2 ranking after losing a host of key players to last year’s undefeated campaign.

And if Friday night’s result against PSJA High isn’t enough to earn some respect, then the Falcons look they’ll have no problem keep proving. Los Fresnos opened up its season with an impressive 42-22 victory over the Bears Friday night at PSJA Stadium.

“I’m real pleased with the outcome, obviously,” Falcons coach Scott Ford said. “We played a tremendous amount of young kids for their first varsity game, so to get out of here with a win I’m as pleased as I can be.”

For a relatively “young” team, Los Fresnos looked like a squad already in midseason form on the field. The Falcons scored on three of its five drives during the first half, including a seven-play, 81-yard drive on its first offensive series that was capped off by a 1-yard run from running back Isaac Nunez (84 yards on 13 carries and one TD).

Los Fresnos had a well balanced attack, recording 446 yards of offense. The Falcons used a two-quarterback system that played well into its favor as junior Eric Castillo threw for 141 yards and two touchdowns on 6-of-10 passing.

Senior Emilio Hernandez added another 76 yards, all of which went to wide receiver Bobby Zepeda, and rushed for one TD in the opening series of the second half that gave the Falcons a commanding 28-7 lead with 8:08 remaining in the third quarter.

Los Fresnos added two early touchdowns in the span of five minutes in the first half that led to 21-7 halftime lead. The play of the game came off a 70-yard strike from Castillo to Aaron Rangel.

Castillo launched a bomb to Rangel, who was covered by free safety Justin Gonzalez. Gonzalez stepped in front of Rangel and tried to intercept but the ball just tipped Gonzalez’s hands and bounced backwards into the arms of Rangel, who raced the last 20 yards for the score.

“I feel that we got a lot better from the Edinburg scrimmage,” said Rangel, who had 101 yards receiving on three receptions. “We were nowhere where we wanted to be. But this is a great experience to come out in our first game and score some points.”

PSJA only kept the game close early in the first half when the Bears put together a 14-play, 80-yard drive that was capped off by an 8-yard run from running back Ruben Garcia. Eleven of those plays came PSJA’s run game, which the Los Fresnos defense was later able to stop.

The Bears racked up 314 yards on offense, 252 of those coming on the ground. Senior RB Gilbert Espino led PSJA with 129 yards on 22 carries and two TDs.

“I thought it was going to be a lot closer than what it was,” Bears coach Mel Rios said. “They have a good football team but I feel we contributed to some of those points tonight. But it’s teams like that we need to play to elevate us to another level.”