McALLEN — Christian De Leon started Friday night with a microphone in hand.
The Nikki Rowe senior middle linebacker stood alone and sang the national anthem at McAllen Veterans Memorial Stadium. Then he traded the microphone for a helmet.
A few hours later, De Leon and the Warriors walked off the same field with a 36-19 win over McAllen Memorial, a victory that moved Rowe into sole possession of second place in District 16-5A Division I.
For De Leon, both parts of the night fit together.
“I love to stay involved in our community,” De Leon said. “I do choir, theater, wrestling — I’m in everything. I’m everywhere.”
It was his first time singing the anthem before a game.
“I was a little nervous, but it was fun,” he said.
The football that followed gave Rowe plenty more to celebrate.
The Warriors jumped ahead 21-0 in the first half, leaning heavily on their running game while keeping Memorial’s offense from finding much rhythm.
Jose Jimenez scored twice during that opening surge, and Rowe repeatedly found room behind its offensive line.
The bigger challenge came later.
Memorial scored just before halftime to make it 21-6, then pieced together a 92-yard touchdown drive in the third quarter to pull within 21-13.
When Rowe fumbled on the opening play of the fourth quarter, the game suddenly felt different.
Memorial turned the short field into another touchdown, cutting the lead to 21-19.
That was the kind of moment De Leon had been talking about all night.
“We just got to keep our composure,” he said. “Stick to our assignments. Everyone has a key assignment when it comes down to this game.”
The Warriors did.
Memorial failed on the two-point try that would have tied the game, and Rowe answered with its biggest offensive play of the night.
Quarterback Alex Leon dropped back and found junior receiver Jakob Faz downfield for a 76-yard touchdown, stretching the lead to 28-19 with 9:41 remaining.
Leon said the play came down to keeping the moment from becoming bigger than it needed to be.
“We just had to keep our composure,” Leon said. “We couldn’t let the moment get too big. Stay focused and just do our thing.”
The throw gave Leon his 13th touchdown pass of the season.
When asked which throw meant the most to him, he did not hesitate.
“Probably the touchdown at the end,” Leon said. “That really set the tempo going in to finish off the game.”
From there, Rowe made Memorial work for everything.
De Leon came through with a fourth-quarter sack, and the Warriors continued swarming a Mustang rushing attack that entered the night as one of the toughest parts of Memorial’s offense to handle.
De Leon credited that work to preparation more than anything else.
“Film, film, film, practice,” he said. “We have a beautiful scout team. Our scout team is amazing out there.”
That preparation mattered against a Memorial offense capable of attacking in several different ways.
“They’re strong players. They’re natural-born athletes,” De Leon said. “As long as you stay composed and locked in, then it’ll be perfectly fine.”
Rowe eventually put the game away with another long possession.
The Warriors chewed nearly five minutes off the clock before Jimenez scored his third touchdown of the night. A successful two-point conversion pushed the margin to 36-19 with 2:20 remaining.
The win improved Rowe to 5-3 overall and 4-1 in district play while snapping Memorial’s three-game winning streak.
It also carried a little extra weight for Leon.
Last season, Memorial beat Rowe 33-31 in triple overtime.
“It’s a big moment,” Leon said. “It’s been a while since we beat them. Coming into this game, we knew what we were capable of.”
De Leon saw it through a wider lens.
The Warriors have now won three straight, and after seasons where things did not always break their way, he said the team is enjoying what this run means to the people around them.
“We love to win,” De Leon said. “We love for our community to see us win because, like I said, in previous years, things haven’t come out our way.”
Then came the shortest answer of the night.
Asked what he wanted people to know about the Nikki Rowe Warriors, De Leon said:
“We’re coming. We coming.”
