Ace of Speights: Last-second touchdown by Mustangs’ RB seals deal against Wolverines
PHARR — The McAllen Memorial Mustangs (3-3, 2-1) showed their horsepower in a 42-38 sparring match win against PSJA Memorial (2-4, 1-2) on Thursday night.
The powder-blue squad had turned some heads for their offense last week when they had put up 75 points against Rio Grande City — a fellow District 16-5A DI foe. This week was no different as four different Mustangs scored for the dub.
Their offense proved that they can score early on and late in the game during clutch moments.
Deep in the fourth quarter — with the score knotted up at 35 — PSJA Memorial’s Gael Maravilla knocked down a 42-yard field goal to give the Wolverines a three-point lead with 1:53 left in the contest.
Quick to the punch, Vicente Valdez took it to the Wolverines’ 13-yard line off of one play with 1:38 to go in the game. After a couple of plays to run the clock, it was senior Braxton Speights who got the call on a goal line play to give the Mustangs the lead and ultimately, the game.
Speights, who has emerged as one of the Valley’s top running backs, had himself a night as he scored four touchdowns on the night. The latter being the one that gave his squad the needed win to even stay in the hunt for the playoffs.
“Especially in a situation like that, knowing that everybody on the sideline, everybody on the field, all the coaches, they trust me, they trust me with the ball,” Speights said. “And that was just a great feeling, just to be able to pull through from my team.”
Coming into the game, it wasn’t even a question that McAllen Memorial was going to score, rather it was how much they were going to put on the board.
The Mustangs’ first drive only took them three plays to score as quarterback Aaron Ponce found wide receiver Izaiah Gonzalez on a 53-yard touchdown pass as he slipped through the hands of the Wolverines’ secondary.
However, Joshua Bautista — quarterback for the Wolverines — was undeterred as he answered right back within a minute of gametime with a 44-yard touchdown pass to Matthew Garza to knot it up at 7.
The Mustangs came back with their own jab as Speights received the pitch to the left-hand side from Ponce for a 5-yard touchdown to give them a 14-7 lead to end the first quarter.
PSJA Memorial played with a lot of grit and guts as they rolled the dice a few times on fourth down. With 3:53 left in the second, the Wolverines capitalized as Bautista pump faked once and then threw a floater to Garza once again to knot it up at 14.
But the Mustangs were quick once again. On the subsequent drive, Oscar Jasso slipped and swaggered his way into the end zone off a 75-yard sprint to the endzone for the 21-14 lead.
After the two-minute warning, Bautista racked in his third touchdown pass as Leo Maravilla spun his way out of a cluster of Mustang defenders for the 68-yard dash to outrun the secondary. It was knotted up at 21 with 1:44 left in the first half.
However, similar to a boxing match, the Mustangs came back with their own lightning strike.
On the preceding kickoff, Valdez sprinted for a 6-plus yard return to set up the Mustangs at the Wolverine 35-yard line. After draining some clock, Speights maneuvered and outran six defenders for the 28-21 halftime lead and his second touchdown of the night.
“I think that just goes back to kind of what the staple, what we do,” Head Coach Moses Patterson said after the game. That’s kind of what our tradition is, as far as running the ball. We could open stuff up a little more. I think we saw the passing game, kind of come alive tonight, but just proud of our quarterback (Ponce). He goes out there, and really controls the flow of everything on our offense, and then we got two studs in the backfield, Braxton and Oscar. They do a great job.”
The Wolverines did come out of the gates in the second half off of another Bautista touchdown. This time, he pushed toward the end zone and scored off a 1-yard rush to knot it up at 28 in the third. The Mustangs went for a touchdown pass from Ponce to Anthony Sanchez on a 4th and 9 but led him too far out of bounds.
The Green Machine was propelled by Maravilla as he got a screen pass and broke out for a 66-yard scramble to the Wolverine’s 8-yard line. The Mustangs don’t get a lot of props on defense but Axel Bocanegra didn’t quit on the play and pulled Maravilla down before he stepped closer to the end zone.
The Wolverines pulled away with a lead as the offensive line pushed Onesimo Perez for the score and to make it 35-28.
Mustangs, like a song that doesn’t miss a note, answered right back as Jasso broke free on the kickoff return to bring it to the Wolverines’ 40-yard line to set the team up in good scoring position.
In the fourth, Speights walked into his third touchdown on the night untouched as he cruised for the 10-yard score to knot it up at 35. After that, the Wolverines did have the late field goal but Speights sealed the deal with the touchdown late at the end.
It was a one-two punch with Speights’ four touchdowns on the night and Jasso’s offensive splurge for over 200 total yards that really helped the Mustangs tough it out in Pharr.
“This offense is capable of good stuff, and we knew we were gonna get it done,” Jasso said. “And we had our high hopes, and we got it done.”
Next week, PSJA Memorial looks to bounce back against the Rattlers in Rio Grande City on Oct. 16. As for the Mustangs, they will look to extend their winning streak to three as they will host the Mission Eagles on Oct. 15.
“We’re the Mustangs, you know,” Speights said. “Obviously, we had a couple hiccups to begin the season, but I feel like the past couple games, we’ve really shown what we could do.”
