By: Jonathan Salinas

After coming off their bye week, the La Joya Coyotes were looking to redeem themselves from week three when they were crushed by the Sharyland Rattlers, 63-6. Unfortunately for La Joya, the Edinburg Economedes Jaguars were also looking to bounce back after a heart breaking loss to the No. 1 Rattlers as they escaped the Coyotes with a 22-13 victory.

The Coyotes came out with a fury as Javier Garcia gave his team great field position after a 42 yard opening kickoff put them just past midfield. The next play, running back Jorge Alvarado took it 25 yards to land the Coyotes in the red zone. However, chalk it up as missed opportunity number one for the home team since their fire was quickly put out as the Jags defense tightened and pushed Alvarado backwards on the next two plays which forced a punt.

The Jags offense was unable to move the chains and was also forced to punt from deep into their own territory which put the Coyotes in great field position at their own 40. They marched all the way to the 15 behind Alvarado but, a holding penalty pushed them back and led to a third and long situation which resulted in another costly missed opportunity and an interception by Andres Duarte in the end zone.

“I think we were there but, this is still a lot of the little mental mistakes,” Coyotes coach George Espinoza said. “They’re still a young ball club. Overall, I commended the team a while ago because they never gave up; they fought all the way to the end.

The Jags offense was almost on cruise control in the second half as running back Bubba Villarreal racked up a total of 154 rushing yards and scored his first touchdown early in the third quarter which put the Jags up 14-0 on their first possession of the second half. Villarreal scored his second touchdown late in the fourth to make it a two-possession game at 22-7 with 4:41 remaining.

“It’s [was] a rebound [game],” Villarreal said after the game. “We had to step it up, run a lot harder, run north and south instead of dancing. It was ugly at the beginning but we stepped it up a lot in the second half and we came back.”

The Jags running game eventually wore down the La Joya defense as they totaled for 291 yards behind Villarreal and Tony Yzaguirre (96). Jaguars coach Gabe Pena is confident that the running game will be the key to success for the remainder of the season.

“We have so much confidence in our running game; that’s our bread and butter,” Pena said after their hard fought victory over the Coyotes. “That’s our style of ball game. These types of games right here are what we need to be playing.”

The Coyotes were able to quickly answer back with a 35 yard touchdown pass from Manny Lucio to Arnan Martinez but they couldn’t execute on the 2 point conversion or the ensuing onside kick which solidified the win for the Jags.

“We were shooting ourselves in the foot,” Coach Espinoza said after the loss. “We had three opportunities to score in the first and we came out and we fell short. We’re in a tough district right now and they showed a lot of heart and character coming back in the second half.”

Edinburg Economedes will have the next week open while the La Joya Coyotes look to even their record against sister school Juarez Lincoln Huskies.