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PHARR, Texas - The inaugural South Texas Premier Soccer Association’s 18-and-Under Summer League will draw to a close when the Tigers and Mission meet up in the championship final on Aug. 27.
The championship match will be played at San Juan Municipal Park at 11:15 a.m. Prior to the title game, the Rattlers and La Joya will face off in the third place match at 9:30 a.m., also at San Juan.
A trophy ceremony will be held after each match.
During mid-week, the STXPSA All-Star team played the second-leg of the Interleague All-Star Game series against the Brownsville All-stars at Valley View High School Stadium in Hidalgo on Aug. 16.
The Brownsville squad defeated the Upper Valley Summer League team 3-1 (6-3 aggregate) to claim the inaugural All-Star Game series trophy. The goals of the Lower Valley All-Star team were scored by Alan Cortinas (2) and José Muñoz. José Ángel Soto scored the lone goal for the STXPSA squad.
In Saturday’s semifinals, the Tigers defeated La Joya 2-1 and Mission surprised the regular-season leading Rattlers 1-0 to advance to the STXPSA 18-U Summer League title game.
After a hard-fought scoreless draw in the first half, Mission notched the lone score of the game on a 47th minute goal by Luis Martínez.
With the clock running, the Rattlers kept pressuring and hardly let Mission out of its half of the field during the last 10 minutes of the match.
In the end it was the STXPSA All-Star goalkeeper Erasmo Vásquez and luck that sealed the victory for the Mission squad when a laser shot by a Rattler player was stopped dead in the air by the keeper, and another shot was denied by the left post to preserve the 1-0 victory.
The Rattlers played without regular-season co-goal scoring champion Daniel García, who was serving a one-game suspension for the ejection he suffered in the season finale.
In the other matchup, Rigoberto Hernández put the Tigers ahead 1-0 in the 10th minute of play, while José Ángel Soto increased their lead to 2-0 in the 43rd.
Juan Montes cut the lead in half to 2-1 on his tally with three minutes remaining in regulation, but it was too late for La Joya to mount a comeback and the Tigers advanced to the title match.
La Joya played part of the second half shorthanded after one of their players was ejected for a dangerous play against a Tigers player.
