Bulldogs shoot down Eagles in district opener
Mission got off to a rocky in their district home opener on Friday and lost four players to injury to boot in a 48-7 loss to McAllen at Tom Landry Stadium.
“We got a lot of work we’ve got to take care of,” Mission head coach Mario Peña said. “We got depleted with injuries and we’re trying to patch up because we just lost several players tonight. We threw some players in there that really didn’t have a lot of experience, but I give credit to McAllen.”
The lopsided loss dropped the Eagles to 1-4 overall and 0-1 in District 30-6A. McAllen improved to 3-2 and 1-0, respectively.
Despite getting picked off in their first possession of the night, the Bulldogs composed themselves to take a 28-0 halftime lead. McAllen added another 20 points in the third quarter to increase their advantage to 48-0 with 5:13 remaining in the quarter.
“Right now, we’re just depleted. Physically, we’re injured,” Peña said. “We just got to keep our heads up and continue working. It’s like I told them, there’s three seasons in a football season. You’ve got non-district, district and hopefully the third one, your postseason. There’s a lot of football left and anything can happen.”
Senior running back Ricky Rodríguez scored three of McAllen’s seven touchdowns on carries of 11, 28 and 5 yards in the first three quarters of the game, respectively.
Junior wide receiver Randy Ivie, junior tight end Caleb Youngblood, junior linebacker Joseph Kim and senior quarterback Fred Hover scored the other TD’s for the Bulldogs.
The Eagles finally got on the board against McHi when the Bulldogs began to substitute starters. Mission’s junior strong safety David Flores found the end zone for the Eagles on a 3-yard run with 2:38 left in the game to avoid a shutout.
“Bottom line is you’ve got to challenge their character,” Peña said. “It’s very easy to start pointing fingers. This is when we have to come together as a football family and not put the blame on anybody but the fact that we have to continue working.”
“That’s my job as a head coach,” he concluded. “To make sure we stay together, not point fingers and continue to work as hard as we can.”
Mission returns to the playing field in search of its first district victory when they visit La Joya Palmview on Oct. 3 in Week 6.
