The Eagles rose to the occasion by scoring first and scoring decisively as leadoff hitter Eric Gonzalez living up to the billing as 1-9 base hit to get on followed by a sac bunt by RJ3, RJ Ruiz moving Gonzalez over to second.

When big Mando Lopez came up to hit, he hit a shot to the shortstop which he was unable to handle, and the heads-up baserunning of Gonzalez allowed him to come in to score the first run for the Burnt Orange and White.

The Eagles continued to play 'Small' ball as Alex Martinez got on with a base on balls and Olexis Gutierrez moved him into scoring position with a sac bunt of his own setting the stage for RJ Ruiz who came through with a base hit scoring Martinez.

The Eagles scored again in the fifth when Isaac Ramirez doubled and was driven in by Carlos Barrera who hit a ground ball to second which was mishandled giving the Eagles a 3-0 lead.

The Eagles rode the emotions of an amazing play turned in by Kevin Chisum with two outs, and runners on 1st and 2nd, a shot was hit into center field which Chisum knew he was going to have trouble gettig to, so he did what he could to put himself in a position to make an absolute circus catch , not only with his back to the ball, but he reached out like a wide receiver if you will to snag that line drive with an outstretched glove making the play and ending the Rattler scoring threat!  If ESPN would have had a camera there, this play may have been on Sunday's edition of Sportcenter (Cue the ESPN Theme song).

For the Eagles it was three runs on an impressive 11 hits and no errors.  For the Rattlers it was no runs on three hits and one error.

Then it was on to Game 3 where the Eagle pitching staff, by committee was able to come out ahead of Sharyland by a score of 5-0 behind the pitching of Julian Castañeda, Isaac Ramirez and Chris Perez who held Mission to four hits.

The eagles scored first when Kevin Chisum lead off the third inning with a base hit, followed by another hit by Eric Gonzalez moving Chisum over to third.  Gonzalez moved to second on a fielder's choice when a familiar thing happened.  Shary's pitcher, David Becerra balked in Chisum for the first Eagle run, much in the way Pancho Martinez balked in the winning run in last year's 10-9 EP victory.

Lopez doubled in the third inning and Carlos Barrera tripled him in followed by the only error of the game, an errant throw to get Barrera allowed him to score as well.

Isaac Ramirez not only came in in the third inning with runners on base to force a pop up for the second out and striking out the next hitter to end the threat, he put on his best Superman impression with a two run double in the fifth inning to give Chris Perez all he needed to close this series out.

For the Eagles it wasfive runs on eight hits and no errors, for the Rattlers it was no runs on four hits and one error.

"We were solid defensively," stated Head Coach Reynol Mendoza, "Our pitching and our defense were solid, we were awesome up the middle (Our 2nd baseman, shortstop and center fielder were were better than theirs on this day) all day long.  Our kids were relentless, they didn't give up and showed a lot of perseverance."

Next up are the Harlingen South Hurricanes who the Eagles will face on Friday at 7:00 PM at Harladale ISD's Tejada Park in San Antonio with Games 2 & 3 on Saturday at 1:00 and 4:00 PM if necessary.