By Reynaldo Leal

rey@956sports.com

The final of the Mission 7-on-7 State Qualifying Tournament ended with a flash Saturday afternoon. The Edcouch-Elsa and Harlingen matchup hadn’t reached half-time before Mother Nature called it for the Yellow Jackets (14-0) as a lightning bolt crashed over the horizon.

Although the Jackets and Cards had already punched their tickets to College Station by reaching the finals, it was an anti-climactic finish to a scorcher of a day that saw 16 teams shoot it out through the air for a chance to move on to the state tournament. The only consolation in the abbreviated ending was that SQT Director Tony Guerrero didn’t have to resort to a best-of-three series of rock-paper-scissors to see which side would claim first place.

Actually, if looked at in the right angle, it was as exciting as a two minute drill at the end of a close game.

“These parents and coaches really put a lot into these kids,” Guerrero said. “You can really tell by how much they want to play and win.”

E-E dissected and picked apart their group D opponents earlier in the day. They beat up on Laredo Nixon (39-13), Sharyland (49-32) and already qualified Weslaco (61-37) by an average of three touchdowns before getting past Laredo United (47-34) in the semis.

The consensus among the E-E players, as they waited for the final to start, was that their path to the next round wasn’t that difficult.

“We really didn’t have any hard games,” said wideout Isaias Martinez, “but we’ve played in these tournaments before and we know what it’s like.”

In fact, the squad had gone to Harlingen the week before and beat the Cardinals in their city tournament by 2 TDs. This was not lost on Harlingen quarterback Brandon Garza.

“We played them during our summer league and they beat us,” he said before the game. “We’re looking for revenge.”

Harlingen had a much more perilous road to the finals (one could argue a tougher group too), and after losing their star wideout Jared Guerrero to a broken wrist during the first game of the tournament, the Cards were grateful to be in their position.

“We made our adjustments and tried to get open as much as we could,” said halfback Victor Cruz. “It’s our job to help out our quarterback.”

They edged their way into the semis by beating both Nikki Rowe and PSJA Memorial by less than a touchdown (51-47, 40-36) and winning a knockout-game tie breaker against Edinburg (26-26) on group points. It was only against Mercedes (39-20) that the wheels really started rolling for Garza and crew.

But the weather and desire to even the score against the Jackets might have pushed the 16-year-old to try too hard and squeeze passes into tight coverage. After marching his team within 5 yards of the goal-line, Garza threw the first of his two INTs in the five minute game. E-E quarterback Erick Morales quickly capitalized on both turnovers to put his team up two touchdowns with passes to Diego Garcia.

Before Garza could recover, the game was over and the Jackets had beaten them by two touchdowns again.

Maybe if there had been more time, and if the clouds had parted, Garza would have made up the two interceptions he threw in back-to-back series. Maybe Morales would have cooled down or made some mistakes of his own. These hypotheticals will never be known, but what is certain is that both teams will play again July 20.