Soccer season ends just short of always high expectations for Brownsville

The soccer season ended all too soon for the Brownsville teams this year.

Lopez, the city's last representative in the Class 5A state playoffs, was eliminated 1-0 in a shootout by San Antonio Reagan on Friday in the Region IV-5A Tournament semifinals at Blossom Athletic Center in San Antonio. It ended Brownsville's streak of four straight years with a team going to the UIL state tour-nament.

Lopez and Porter won state titles in 2004 and 2006, respectively. Rivera advanced to state in 2005 and 2007.

The District 32-5A third-place Lobos gave it their best shot against District 26-5A third-place Reagan on Friday afternoon, but could not come up with the victory that would have kept them on track for a return to state.

"I can't say anything bad about our season," said 11th-year Lopez head coach Amadeo Escandon, whose team ended with a 20-6-4 record. "It was a great season. Too bad that it ended like this for us.

"What can I say?" he added. "Our guys did an excellent job. We came all the way over here. It was the first team from Lopez to ever make it to the (5A) regional tournament, so I'm very proud of them."

Escandon said the Lobos are graduating nine seniors, including starters Edgar Acuna, Kendor Vasquez, Juan Cruz, Marco Guevara, Felix Medellin and Isidro Ramos. Other seniors on the Lopez roster are Adan Martinez, Jorge Cruz and Francisco Amador.

"We're graduating quite a few guys," Escandon said. "But we still have some good players coming back."

The 2008 season was unlike a year ago when Hanna, Porter, Pace and Rivera all advanced to the re-gional quarterfinals and the Raiders wound up defeating Pace 1-0 in a shootout in the regional final to advance to state as 32-5A's fourth-place team.

This year, Pace was eliminated 3-0 by Edinburg Economedes in bi-district, Rivera was ousted 3-2 by Laredo LBJ in the area round and Porter was eliminated 1-0 in a shootout by La Joya in the regional quar-terfinals.

Only Lopez made it through to the regional tournament by capturing come-from-behind wins over Harlingen (3-2), McAllen High (3-1) and LBJ (4-3 in overtime).

"It was a great experience for us to make it to San Antonio," Escandon said. "As a coach, it's something that you always look forward to doing. As a player (for Hanna), I've been here, too. I wasn't playing much at that time, but I know being here is an experience that's going to be with you for the rest of your life."

On Friday night, San Antonio Churchill edged La Joya 1-0 in the other boys regional semifinal.

In Saturday afternoon's boys regional final at Blossom, 26-5A runner-up Churchill defeated Reagan X-X to earn its eighth trip to state. The Chargers won state titles in 1989, 1998, 2001, 2002 and 2003. The Chargers had beaten Reagan 2-0 and 4-1 in district earlier this season.

Also Saturday, MacArthur defeated Reagan X-X in the girls regional final to earn a trip to state.