GOMEZ RECALLS, COMPARES 1989 TEAM

BY GREG SELBER

It’s been 20 years now, but the similarities are obvious for Manny Gomez.

As a junior linebacker for the 1989 Harlingen Cardinals, he had a big hand in the team’s third-round playoff win against Austin LBJ, played up in Corpus at Buc Stadium; that 14-0 shocker came on a cold and miserable November day, and sent the Cards into the fourth round against Judson.

Now the coach at his alma mater, Gomez got a little déjà vu Friday night as his club knocked out San Antonio Southwest, 21-14 in Kingsville. The weather was crappy, with rain falling intermittently, and it helped the Redbirds hold all-star back Travion Johnson under 100 yards. Back in 1989, the rain and mud had helped neutralize LBJ’s speedy backfield, and 20 years down the road, the scrappy Cards did it again.

“But the truth us, it was way colder back in that 1989 game,” said Gomez Saturday afternoon, as he and his staff boned up on game film featuring the Westlake Chaparrals, the regional-round opponent. That game will take place Friday at 4 p.m., up in the Alamo Dome in San Antonio and will mark the 8th time the program has made it this far. “Plus, we had a bunch of big plays nullified by the field conditions, probably more runs and passes than they had.”

So, Harlingen, recognized as the top of the heap in Valley football for 2009, gets a chance at redemption, after last year’s 49-23 loss to Westlake at this exact juncture in the bracket. That ball game was lost early, as the Chaps returned a pair of kickoffs for touchdowns and never looked back. Though Harlingen would amass nearly 500 yards of offense, the slow start was the killer.

“We’ve had that sign up since last year, ‘Remember the Alamo Dome,’ and we are ready to go up there and represent, for our school but also for the entire Valley,” said the coach, who has taken his club to a 12-0 mark this season with an offense that is No. 6 all time in the Valley for points scored (556). “We felt like we could have won that game last year, the kids were pissed after we started like that, and they all came into this year wanting to get back up there and show what they can do. Now we’re going and it feels great, man, freakin’ great!”

Instead of falling behind fast Friday, the Cards struck for two TDs in the first two minutes against Southwest, which came in undefeated and boasting perhaps the Alamo City’s best squad, next to 12-0 Clark. Senior 1,000-yard back Pablo Garza broke a 71-yard score early on, and then the Dragons fumbled the ensuing kickoff. From there, senior QB Mack Sanchez popped one up the middle for a score and the Cards were in good shape.

“It was a sloppy field, and they had their chances, we had our chances,” Gomez said. “Maybe they thought we were going to lay down or something, they were trying to intimidate us in pregame. But you know what? We just came out and hit them in the mouth. That’s what you gotta do in the playoffs.”

As the Cards have risen to the third round for the third time in the decade (they also went in 2003 and 2008), they’ve done so with the super combo of Garza and Sanchez, not to mention a nifty wideout set with Anthony Reyna and Luke Lucio. But the defense must not be overlooked, after having allowing just 10 points a game in the regular season. Friday night, Mingo Rincon recovered two of the Dragons’ four lost fumbles – returning one for a third-period TD that gave the Valley squad breathing room – and Cesar Martinez came up with two picks; the Cards took six turnovers and gave none, with linebacker Dallas Zamora breaking through on a blitz to force the bobble that Rincon ran back 25 yards for the final Card points of the night.

“We are an aggressive team and maybe sometimes too much, but that’s just the way we are,” laughed Gomez, who could have added, though we know it already, that that is the way he and his staff are, too.

Now they are moving on to a rematch with Westlake (10-2), a mighty program that has won 75 percent of its lifetime games with a state title in 1996 and has won 102 games in the decade. The Chaps, who won at least 10 games every year in the ‘90s and took 126 overall victories in that span, dropped out in the fourth round to Clark last year after beating the Cards. And actually, the two tangled in the third round back in 2003 as well, with the Chaps getting the best of Harlingen. Despite the history of the Westlake crew, the Cards are unfazed.

“They’re beatable, let me tell you that,” said Gomez, whose drive and confidence have become a part of every team he’s coached since taking over for Randy Cretors four years back. “They may execute better this year but they had better skills guys and athletes last year. As for the size, well, we match up well, neither team is much bigger than the other. I think we are going to go up there and compete and have a good chance to win.”

For the Southwest game, the Cards were the home team at Javelina Stadium but chose to situate themselves on the visitors’ side, where 8,000 Redbird rooters congregated to help carry their team to victory.

“That’s the way we did it in ’89, so I wanted to do it again this year,” said Gomez, who went on from Harlingen to a solid career at Texas A&I. “I am always thinking about the past while at the same time living in today.”

And as for the comparisons that have inevitably sprung up lately between the 1989 team and this year’s juggernaut, Twenty years ago, legendary coach Jesse Longhofer guided a big, fast and mean unit through three wins until it met Converse Judson in a televised regional final game at Boggus Stadium, which the Rockets won, 31-9.

“I think we have more team speed than we did back then, but we’re not as big,” the coach commented. “The mindset we had in ’89, that we were not going to back down from anyone, that mindset we have again this time. Our expectations this year were to be one of the best teams in the state…hell, we think we can win state and I am not lying to you.”

As for the Valley’s 12-70 lifetime record in third-round playoff games, don’t think that that sort of statistical stuff bothers Gomez. It doesn’t.

“If I ever thought that myself or any of my coaches would be satisfied with just getting here, to the third round, I would tell them they need to fire themselves, right now!” he barked. “As long as I’m here we aren’t ever going to be thinking that because we’re a Valley team, we can’t compete. Never! You always coach to win, and you play to win, period. It doesn’t happen too often that a team gets the chance that we have, but you know what…we’ve earned the right to be here, we worked hard all year and have been excellent in all phases of the game. I can tell you, Westlake better watch out, because we are going to be ready to play.”

Gomez went out of his way to wish the other area teams that have advanced to the third round the best of luck. Two of them, Edinburg North and Pharr North, were vanquished by the Cards earlier in the District 31-5A season. North (9-3) gets Brandeis (11-1) this weekend while the Raiders (11-1) will play New Braunfels (9-3). All three games will be at the Alamo Dome. Pharr North starts off the 31-5A quest for the regional semis on Friday at noon, with the Cards to follow. The Cougars have to wait until Saturday to get a shot at Brandeis.

“Right now, it’s us against them and I want all the Valley teams to represent and make the rest of the state know that they can’t take us lightly,” said the Card mentor. “We’ve all earned some respect for what we’ve done but now we have to go up there and show what we can do in the third round.”

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