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United South’s JP Briseno is all smiles after an inning-ending out during a district game against LBJ on April 21, 2026, at Uni-Trade Stadium.<\/p>\n
Billy Woods\/Laredo Morning Times<\/p>\n
United’s Michael Guerra celebrates a hit during a district game against LBJ on April 14, 2026, at\u00a0UISD’s Bill Johnson Student Activity Complex.<\/p>\n
Billy Woods\/Laredo Morning Times<\/p>\n
District 30-6A baseball action wrapped up April 24, and two Laredo teams are officially headed to the playoffs<\/p>\n
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United South (27-6, 8-4) and United (13-14,7-5) finished third and fourth in the district, marking the Panthers\u2019 fourth consecutive playoff appearance and the Longhorns\u2019 22nd straight playoff berth. The two teams took opposite paths to the postseason, with United South starting the campaign scorching hot and United relying on a four-game win streak to claim a top-four finish<\/p>\n
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The Panthers opened the campaign with 12 consecutive wins, marking the team\u2019s best start in program history. But, they hit a minor skid\u00a0 in the middle of the season, dropping four of seven games from March 24 to April 14.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kind of hit a slump there, right in the middle, where we slumped with our bats, but our pitching has kept us in every game,\u201d Panthers head coach Dante Madrigal told the Laredo Morning Times. \u201cBut we\u2019re happy where we\u2019re at right now. Our guys are coming around and we\u2019re in the same scenario as we were last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Panthers\u2019 pitching staff features some of Laredo\u2019s top talents in Roman Martinez and JP Brise\u00f1o. Martinez posted a 6-0 record with just six earned runs and a 96:18 K:BB across 60.1 innings this season. The senior already owns the Panthers\u2019 program record in total strikeouts, and with a 15-strikeout performance April 24 against LBJ, he bested his own single-season strikeout record. As if that weren\u2019t enough, Martinez is five hits away from setting the Panthers total hits record and is batting (.367) with three home runs, 24 runs scored and 20 RBI this season.<\/p>\n
Brise\u00f1o has been incredibly impressive in his own right. Briseno boasts a 7-1 record and a 1.90 ERA across 51.2 innings this season while batting .429 with two home runs, 21 runs scored and 18 RBI at the plate, and he leads United South with 35 hits.<\/p>\n
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Madrigal hopes that the two-way duo and a veteran supporting cast will be enough to make a deep run in the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we start playoffs, everybody\u2019s back to 0-0 and we got to show up,\u201d Madrigal said.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re very happy with what we\u2019ve accomplished so far but we want to move past that Sweet 16 we made in 2019 and hopefully we make it at least to the Elite 8.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matching or exceeding the feats of that 2019 team is a legitimate possibility. The 2026 Panthers\u2019 27-6 record bested the 2019 squad\u2019s regular season record of 26-7. And as far as Madrigal is concerned, this group is prepared for the postseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys are ready, we\u2019ve played 30-something games already, and in practice we haven\u2019t changed much,\u201d Madrigal said. \u201cBut in the playoffs, one little mistake can cost you. That\u2019s what happened to us last year\u2026We\u2019re always talking about that. \u2018Remember last year.\u2019 We are going to make errors, we are going to make mistakes but we gotta limit them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Longhorns, on the other hand, have endured a rollercoaster season. They won just five of their first 16 games before district play. They opened District play with a 3-1 record before being swept by Medina Valley and Eagle Pass in back-to-back series. That put United in a difficult position ahead of the final two weeks of district play. But the Longhorns rose to the challenge and rattled off four consecutive wins, sweeping LBJ and Alexander to secure the No. 4 seed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of ups and downs, and we finished the season on the up side,\u201d Longhorns\u2019 head coach Rudy Saldivar said. \u201cThe thing I\u2019m most proud of is the guys just sticking together. We could\u2019ve fallen apart when we hit the wall\u2026we stuck together and finished district play on the strong side.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while players like Hector Cadena, who slashed .418\/.667\/.500 with four home runs, 26 runs scored and 12 RBI, and Michael Guerra, who slashed .333\/.465\/.444 with 13 RBI a 12:13 BB:K anchor the Longhorns\u2019 lineup, it\u2019s been the pitching staff that\u2019s been the team\u2019s X-Factor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their top two arms, Alonso Barbarena and Lamberto Sicairos threw back-to-back complete-game shutouts during the team\u2019s series sweep of Alexander. Sicairos has an exceptional 1.37 ERA with a 20:9 K:BB across 51 innings. Barbarena logged a 2.0 ERA with 44 strikeouts in 45 innings. The duo is complemented by a pair of freshmen: Pedro Cisneros and Santiago Jacques. Cisneros posted a 3-0 record with a 2.70 ERA across 23.1 innings while Jacques tallied a 3.42 ERA in 14.1 innings. Altogether, it\u2019s a strong group that may have exceeded preseason expectations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cThese guys are going to go up there and they\u2019re going to do their job and give us a chance every time that they step on the field or on the mound,\u201d Saldivar said of his pitching staff. \u201cI\u2019m very proud that they come in every day and they get after it.\u201d<\/p>\n
And by pairing the pitching with some hot bats, United hopes to make some noise in the postseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United South’s JP Briseno is all smiles after an inning-ending out during a district game against LBJ on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2288],"tags":[82550,5,2328,2304,4,2305,2303],"class_list":{"0":"post-682501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-aud4h","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","11":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-mlb-playoffs","14":"tag-mlb-postseason"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116465818254373576","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}