The Rio Grande Valley is getting ready to send a team to the state semifinal championship game for the first time since 2003.

Everyone is coming out to show their support, including Valley football legend Luz Pedraza.

Pedraza was the quarterback for the 1961 Donna High School state championship team. They were the first, and so far the only, Valley football team to win a state championship.

“We have had several teams get up to this point, but they don't succeed,” Pedraza said.

At nearly 80-years old, Pedraza said he's ready to see new names added into the history books, and he’s keeping an eye out on the Brownsville Veterans Memorial Chargers,

In over sixty years of following Valley football, Pedraza says the Chargers’ fourth-quarter comeback against the Corpus Christi Miller Buccaneers during Friday’s regional finals was one of the best he's seen.

“To me, it was unbelievable what they did in the fourth quarter,” Pedraza said. “After the third quarter I thought, ‘well, they're done.’ Nope. Those kids fought and scrapped for everything they got, and they were able to do it."

The Chargers won that game with a score of 35 to the Buccaneer’s 28.

Pedraza hopes Friday’s state semifinals will help put the Valley back on the map in football.

“It brings the community closer together, and the focus is on the kids,” Pedraza said. “It's time for another Valley team to win a state championship in football because I want people around the state to know where the Valley is located."

The Chargers will be taking on the Smithson Valley Rangers on Friday, Dec. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Buccaneer Stadium in Corpus Christi.