By Brian Argabright
The 830 Times
Del Rio’s hopes for a district football championship are done.
Laredo United South scored on all but one of its first half possessions and put the Del Rio Rams in a hole they never dug out of it as the Rams fell to the Panthers, 42-7, Friday night at the Bill Johnson Student Activity Complex in Laredo.
The loss drops the Rams to 4-5 overall and 3-2 in district play. South (5-0) earns the district title with the win as they have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Eagle Pass should both teams finish the regular season tied.
The Rams will now focus on the Eagles in a rare Saturday regular season finale. A win by Del Rio will give the Rams the number one seed in Division II and will allow the team to host a playoff game. A loss and the Rams will hit the road for their Bi-District playoff game.
Friday night, South used its running game to set the tone early. Junior Brandon Benavides was the featured back throughout the first half, and on the opening drive he capped things with a 21-yard run to the end zone that put the Panthers up, 7-0.
Del Rio’s first offensive possession wasn’t so successful as the Rams went three-and-out, punting back to the Panthers. The Rams would struggle offensively throughout the half, picking up just one first down in their first five possessions.
After punting on its next possession, their only punt of the first half, the Panthers returned to the end zone on their third possession, this time on a 25-yard run by Benavides to push their lead to 14-0.
Touchdown number three for South came on a 52-yard pass from quarterback Luis Cisneros to Javier Rodriguez. That made it a 21-0 lead for United South in the first quarter.
South’s next scoring drive was highlighted by the work of Armando Garza. Garza’s catch and run set the Panthers up at the Rams’ 10-yard line. On the next play, Garza took the handoff and finished off the final 10 yards into the end zone, untouched, to stake the Panthers to a 28-0 lead in the second quarter.
Benavides made it 35-0 with his third touchdown of the first half, this time from six yards out, as he took a hard hit from Jesus De Luna and tumbled into the end zone.
Down by five scores, the Rams looked to start the second half on a positive note. Things looked promising as Luis Pablo Galaviz started to find a little more room to operate both rushing and receiving, but after his best run of the game, Galaviz was spun down, bounced off a Panthers player on the ground and fumbled. South recovered at the Del Rio 39-yard line.
South took advantage, working its way down the field before Cisneros and Garza connected again, this time on a six-yard scoring pass, to give the Panthers a 42-0 lead in the third quarter.
As the fourth quarter began, the Panthers missed a field goal that would have given them a 45-0 lead. Instead, the miss gave the Rams another chance to make something happen, this time from their own 20-yard line.
A strong Galaviz run started the drive with a first down. A big pass play from Rams quarterback Zack Taylor to Jovhan West put the Rams into South territory. A second pass from Taylor to Zane Hughes put Del Rio inside the Panthers’ 30-yard line.
Two plays later, Taylor and Hughes hooked up again and the freshman showed off his strength, dragging three South defenders to the six-yard line. After a short run by Galaviz, Taylor found Corbin Farrar in the back of the end zone for the score, cutting the lead to 42-7.
Del Rio had one last chance to score after Taylor found Hughes with a shovel pass that he turned into a 64-yard gain all the way to the United South one-yard line. On the next play, however, miscommunication between Galaviz and Taylor led to a fumble and South’s Julio Arevalo recovered, ending the scoring threat and sealing the game for South.
—
Contact the author at drnhsports@gmail.com
