In Pursuit

Weslaco High’s Mishak Rivas is having one of the greatest seasons by a running back in Texas history — and Division I coaches are taking notice.

Just hours after his team exploded in the fourth quarter for a 28-25 win over Nebraska on Saturday, Texas coach Mack Brown called Rivas to congratulate him on his record-breaking day against San Benito.

“There are some kids in your career that you’ll see, and they’re special,” Weslaco High coach Tony Villarreal said. “And then there are some kids that are very special. But he’s real special. He’s off the charts special. He’s definitely a D-I player.”

Fresno State also called over the weekend to offer Rivas a scholarship, Villarreal said Tuesday, and Rivas is planning trips to visit three schools that have shown interest: Texas, Texas Christian and Houston.

Rivas ran for 431 yards and four touchdowns in the Panthers’ 41-21 win at San Benito, which was widely regarded as having the best run defense in the Rio Grande Valley. That performance gave him 2,088 rushing yards with two regular-season games remaining. He’s averaging an eye-popping 15.7 yards per carry.

McAllen Memorial’s Bradley Stephens set the RGV single-season rushing record at 2,622 yards in 10 games (nine regular season, one playoff game) in 2005.

In the playoffs

Thanks in large part to Rivas, the Weslaco High Panthers have clinched a postseason berth already, as has Los Fresnos. San Benito can clinch the third 32-5A playoff spot with a win Saturday at Brownsville Hanna.

In District 32-4A, only Edcouch-Elsa has clinched by virtue of its head-to-head and positive points advantages over Mercedes and Mission High, the only remaining teams besides Mission Veterans Memorial that can catch the Yellowjackets. But E-E coach Joe Solis hasn’t stopped to enjoy his team’s fifth consecutive playoff berth.

“My reaction (to clinching) is I have Roma next, and they look like a (darn) good team, and we have homecoming, and that’s what I’m going to concentrate on,” Solis said.

Valley View honored

The Valley View Tigers were named the Army Strong Team of the Week for Class 4A in the state of Texas by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football on Tuesday after picking up the second-year program’s first win, 7-6 at Mercedes on Friday.

The Tigers took advantage of five Mercedes turnovers to stay in the game, then won it on a fourth-down TD pass from Rick Delgado to Nathan Faris with 1:02 left in the contest.

Tough times in Mercedes

Of course, there are two sides to every story, and as happy as this one is for Valley View it’s equally troubling for Mercedes, a program that seemed to have everything heading in the right direction before Friday’s shocking loss.

“Truthfully it feels like for the last three years we’ve been trying to build something, and we took over a place here that wasn’t very good, 4-15 the two years before I got here, and I thought that we were moving the program in the right direction,” Mercedes coach Gilbert Leal said. “And to me, this may be overstating it, but in my opinion it was all flushed down the toilet, the last three years that we’ve had, in three hours Friday night.”