Rio Hondo earns playoff berth with hard-fought win

RIO HONDO — The Rio Hondo Bobcats didn’t want to lose.

Neither did the La Feria Lions.

But in the end, the Cats fought off a feisty La Feria team to win 21-14 and grab the final playoff spot in District 32-3A in the Valley Morning Star’s Game of the Week on Friday night.

“It’s awesome. I knew we could get to the playoffs with these guys,” a jubilant Rio Hondo head coach Rocky James “It was just a matter of getting everything to come together and they were awesome tonight.”

The Bobcats (5-5 overall, 5-2 district) will now face Sinton in a Class 3A Division-II bi-district game next Friday in Falfurrias.

Meanwhile, La Feria gave a top-notch effort, but its season ends at 4-6, 3-4 respectively.

“We have great kids and the effort was there tonight,” Lions head coach Elifonso Esquivel said. “I give credit to Rocky and his staff, they showed a lot of class. We had a few miscues, but we have nothing to be ashamed of.”

He was right on the money. The Lions had nothing to hang their heads about.

The Bobcats took control early when Trevor David (17 carries, 78 yards) dashed in from four yards out with 6:21 to go in the first quarter. The PAT was blocked.

Then in the second quarter, Isaiah De la Cruz (25-130) scooted in for a 7-yard TD. He capped it with a conversion run to push it to 14-0 Cats with 4:36 left before intermission.

“We wanted this one real bad. For us seniors, it was our last home game,” De la Cruz said. “It’s big. We didn’t want to be the class that didn’t make it to the playoffs.”

But La Feria, just as it had done all season, didn’t go down easily.

Via the passing game, Justin Rodriguez connected with Freddy Gonzalez for a 34-yard pass down to the Rio Hondo 33. Later on 4th-and-11, Rodriguez found Gilbert Jimenez in stride for a 34-yard scoring strike. Brian Vasquez’s point after cut the lead in half, 14-7, and it stayed that way at intermission.

After Rio Hondo punted its first second half possession away, the Lions were at it again.

Two big 32-yard pass plays to Vasquez and Jimenez put the Lions in business at the Bobcat 41. Two plays later, Rodriguez found Gonzalez for a 27-yard TD pass. With Vasquez lost to an injury, Jose Martinez hit the PAT to tie it with 6:36.

At that time, Deep River had to dig deep and they did exactly that.

Alan Garza (8-91) carried twice for 37 yards including 30 on 3rd-and-1. He finished it off two plays later with a 17-yard score off a perfect pitch from De la Cruz around right end. Jesse Lopez’s PAT made it 21-14 with 3:40 left in the third.

From then, the Bobcat defense held off a couple of Lions charges to preserve the lead.

And now the Cats are in the playoffs for the fifth straight season.

“The kids didn’t want the season to end and they fought to the end,” James said. “Now, we’ve got to get ready for Sinton.”

Armando Garza covers District 32-3A football for Valley Freedom Newspapers.