Mendoza's overtime goal lifts Scorpions to RRAC championship

FORT WORTH - After 90 minutes of intensity on the soccer field, the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College came out aggressive in overtime and pulled out a dramatic 1-0 victory over Huston-Tillotson in the Red River Athletic Conference championship game Saturday.

Fernando Mendoza received a crisp pass from Juan Nava and blasted a close-range goal that trickled off the hands of HTU goalkeeper Gabe Gibbons and into the net with 3:43 left in the first overtime. The goal set off a wild celebration by the Scorpions, who won their second straight RRAC title in two years of the soccer program.

UTB/TSC (15-4) advances to the NAIA national tournament, which starts with opening-rounds games at home sites of higher-seeded teams. The Scorpions will play Nov. 22, but pairings will not be announced until Nov. 16.

"We showed great resilience throughout the match," Scorpions coach Dan Balaguero said. " The boys stuck to the game plan and did not panic when we missed chances. We knew the goal had to come. Nando took the goal so well, when the game is on the line you need your big-time players to step up. That is exactly what he did."

For Mendoza and fellow seniors James McCarron and Dave Purser, reaching the national tournament is a fitting end to their careers. They played as freshmen for Balaguero at Virginia Intermont College, and advanced to the NAIA national tournament.

This year's Scorpions team rides into the national tournament on a 10-game winning streak, registering seven shutouts along the way. UTB/TSC has 10 shutouts in 19 games, a record that puts the Scorpions sixth-best in the country.

"It is truly gratifying to reflect upon our team's accomplishments from this past year in the context of a single season, and also in the broader prospective of the last two seasons," Balaguero said. "To win the RRAC regular season and conference tourney title for a second consecutive time is really a substantial achievement. I felt like we had a bull's-eye on our back the entire campaign, and yet the players embraced the challenge of knowing that people were eager to knock us off each time we took the field."

The Scorpions outshot HTU 18-6 and had a 9-3 advantage on shots on goal. Mendoza and Nava had four shots each, and three of Mendoza's were on goal.

Huston-Tillotson gave the Scorpions all they could handle and came close to scoring three times in the game. The Rams (12-7-1), who won the conference tournament in 2006 before UTB-TSC came into the picture, had reeled off six straight conference victories after losing to the Scorpions in Austin in September.

"Give credit to HTU, they gave us a great match and were a credit to the conference," Balaguero said.