Valley teams stumble at state

AUSTIN - Friday was not one of the more proud moments in the history of Rio Grande Valley high school athletics.

Unless Rio Grande City’s 95-pound Jenny Garza continues her run through the state tournament, once again, the Valley will be shut out of state championship wrestling glory.

Garza was the only Valley wrestler to make it to the third round of the Texas State Wrestling Meet, pinning Sabrina Placencio from Amarillo Palo Duro in the first round then Meagan Goleman of Arlington in the second.

That, however, is about the extent of the Valley’s success Friday.

Only two boys, Rio Grande City heavyweight Arnoldo Caraballo and Weslaco High 135-pounder Frank Hernandez even managed to win their first-round matches. Both, however, lost their second matches, with Caraballo being outpointed 5-3 by Daniel Steedly of Fort Worth Westly Hills and Hernandez losing 9-0 to Austin Barnes of Rockwall.

The girls didn’t fare any better, with Garza and PSJA High 215-pounder Yolanda Pena the only wrestlers from the Valley to make the second round of the championship bracket. That, however, was as far as Pena went, losing to Yadinma Nwaiwu of Coppell.

La Joya coach Joe Lopez attributed the disappointing results to a lack of experience among Valley wrestlers. The Coyotes had one girl, 215-pound Roxana Gonzalez and 2 boys, 130-pound David Saldana, 189-pound Cris Hernandez compete Friday in Austin.

None of them made it past their first match in the championship bracket.

“It was a lot about experience. For a lot of these wrestlers, it was their first year,” said Lopez, whose boys and girls teams both won district championships. “Usually, it takes them a year to get the hang of it. They realize that a lot of the kids up here can do certain things.”

Valley swimmers also learned the same thing Friday.

No individual or relay-team finished in the top eight of their competitions, meaning that the best any can do is win today’s consolation races.

The best finish by any relay team was the 13th place turned in by Harlingen South in the boys 200-yard medley relay. The team of Tony John, Hector Castaneda, Cord Salazar and Anthony Dominguez had the 13th best qualifying time, which completed the relay in 1:52.31, almost 18 seconds behind first-place San Antonio Churchill.

McAllen Memorial coach Roxanne Balducci said she expected the competition to be difficult Friday in Austin. And, unlike when her teams compete in district or even regional meets, she sounded like tried to keep the expectations down around her team.

“We might have been nervous, maybe swimming tired,” Balducci said. “They swam late in the day when they were used to swimming early.

“Swimming against those teams from The Woodlands, Dallas, San Antonio, they’re really tough. We didn’t come here with an expectation to be one of the top-five teams. Our expectations were to get in there and do lifetime bests, reach All-American and other goals.”

Still, with today’s consolation heats, Balducci’s team will get one more chance to swim. None of the athletes will have a chance to win state championships, but they will get chances to meet certain goals they had before the event.

“We all have these goals and that’s what we’re going to try to achieve (today),” Balducci said.