A CHAMPIONSHIP FOR THE ENTIRE RIO GRANDE VALLEY

By Carlos Robledo

It was the bottom of the last inning and the Weslaco Lady Panthers were losing to the WacoMidway Pantherettes 9-3 in the state championship softball game. A few fans started to leave Red and Charline McCombs’ field on the campus of the University of Texas for the 321 miles back to Weslaco. It was a good run for a Rio Grande Valley sport that was started 30 years ago, but softball would have to wait another year for a team to have a chance at a state title.

In the dugout, coach Mario Rodriguez of the Weslaco Lady Panthers had not given up hope. The 18-year veteran told his team before the last at bat, “We are not going to make it up all at once. We just need quality at bats.”

Rio Grande Valley sports history is not filled with state championships in softball, baseball, basketball, or football. There are seven UIL state champions in soccer and six state champions in cross country. Of the major sports, football, basketball, baseball, and softball, there is one state champ, the 1961 Donna High School football team. There has never been a girls’ squad that won a team state championship.

When it comes to the state playoffs, Rio Grande Valley High School sports teams have a difficult time getting past the schools from the San Antonio and Austin area. In fact, during football season, when San Antonio schools are matched up against Valley schools in the third round of the playoffs, they call it Valley Week or Valley Weak.

However, recent successes are changing that train of thought. Brownsville Veterans Memorial reached the state semifinals during the 2023 football season. Just last year, San Benito reached the state tournament in softball for the third time in school history. And this year, Harlingen South and Weslaco High School not only reached the state tournament but they also won their state semifinal games. However, Harlingen South eventually lost in the state championship game 8-0, and it looked like Weslaco would lose as well.

There was hope for the Lady Panthers. Earlier in the season, during a tournament, they beat Houston Katy, a state and nationally-ranked team. During Weslaco’s first playoff series, they had scored so many runs they intentionally gave themselves up for outs because the opposing team could not stop them from hitting the ball and the continuous scoring spree. During their playoff series to make the state tournament, they dominated an elite San Antonio high school team. They won game one 16-3 and game two 21-2. And every senior who started on the team had already signed on to play softball in college.

This was the best team Mario Rodriguez had ever coached, and he had a team that went to the state tournament in 2016. Yet here we were, down by six runs going up against another state ranked team that had just broken the UIL record for most home runs in a state championship game with four. The Weslaco Lady Panthers had also played 13 innings the night before, they played nearly four hours just to qualify for this game. Waco-Midway cruised past their semi-final opponent winning 9-3.

Waco-Midway had a comfortable lead, and the odds and history were working against this Rio Grande Valley team. How could they win? Well, like the coach alluded to, one batter at a time, with “quality at bats.” An error, an RBI, a couple of walks, a hit by a pitch, and two more RBIs made the score 9-7. Then Sophomore Adrea Ortiz came up to the plate with the bases loaded. She was not the hottest hitter on the team at the time, she had not hit the ball at all during the tournament. Yet she told her coach before going up to the plate, “I got this coach.” And with one swing of the bat, she changed Rio Grande Valley sports history forever with a grand slam, and the Lady Panthers won the Class 6A State Championship 11-9. There was excitement, cheers, laughter, and an abundance of tears. This was for a gold medal, a state championship ring, in the biggest softball game in the state of Texas. It wasn’t just the Lady Panthers who won a title; it was the entire Rio Grande Valley.