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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas

Friday, April 22, 2005

LL to honor ’71 PL team to open play

The Pecos Little League will be honoring a Pony League team Saturday morning, when the 2005 season gets underway at the Chano Prieto Little League Field.

Leo Elliott is scheduled to throw out the first pitch during opening ceremonies, which will begin at 8 a.m. Elliott was one of the coaches on the 1971 Pecos Pony League team that advanced to the Pony League World Series in Washington, Pa.

A full day of games is scheduled following the opening events, as the league starts its first day of play earlier than normal, after getting regular season action underway a little later than usual for 2005. The regular season will run through mid-June, after which Pecos’ 9-10 and 11-12 year old All-Star teams will participate in their new Little League district tournament. After years as members of District 4, with teams from the San Angelo area, Pecos will be in a new district that includes Monahans, Fort Stockton and Alpine. Alpine will be moving over from District 3, while Monahans and Fort Stockton have rejoined the national Little League program after a long absence.

While the Little League starts at 8 a.m., the Pecos Junior League will be having their tryouts starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning at Martinez Field. The league is open to 13 and 14-year-olds and will play their games in May and June before all-stars are selected for tournament competition.

Pecos to use home field earlier in ’05 season

The Pecos Eagles won’t be juggling the early part of their home schedule this coming football season, and will play their first pre-season scrimmage and their regular season opener at home this coming August.

The Eagles will be trying to rebound from a 1-9 campaign in 2004, with their only win coming in a game against Denver City moved from Pecos to Monahans, due to delays with installing the new artificial turf at Eagle Stadium. Pecos also lost their scheduled pre-season home scrimmage against Coahoma last year, and the field was barely ready - but not finished - in time for the Eagles Sept. 10 homecoming game against Kermit. Enough rubber was put on the field to pad the field well enough to play the final four home games, as well as the sub-varsity and pee-wee football games last fall. But more rubber pellets were spread across the field towards the end of the year, and the last layers of rubber for the field are just being poured into the field this week.

The fully-completed field will get its first game use on Aug. 13, when Pecos hosts Andrews in the first of their two pre-season scrimmages. They’ll go back to Coahoma for another scrimmage the following week, then open the 2005 season on Aug. 26, with a home game against the Midland Christian Mustangs.

Pecos’ schedule is the same as a year ago, except for having the home sites reversed. For the Denver City game, that means a trip to the Mustangs’ final for the Eagles’ road opener on Sept. 2 They’ll go to Kermit the following week, then host Crane in the 2005 homecoming game before closing out their pre-district schedule with a Sept. 23 visit to Sweetwater.

District 3-3A play for the Eagles will open at home on Oct. 7 versus Lamesa, while their road opener is the following Friday at Seminole. Greenwood and Monahans then come to Pecos, before the regular season ends with a Nov. 4 game at Fort Stockton. All game times are at 7:30 p.m. with the exception of the Sept. 9 game in Kermit, which is an 8 p.m. start.

The junior varsity and freshmen teams will play the same schedule as the varsity, except for having the home sites reversed and playing only a JV contest on Aug. 25, when Pecos goes to Midland Christian. The freshmen open their season the following week at home against Denver City, followed by the JV contest. Play will begin 5 p.m. each week for the 9th grade and JV combination games.

The Eagles’ junior high teams will start their seasons on the road in Kermit on Sept. 8, with ‘A’ and ‘B’ team games. The junior high schedule will be the same as the varsity wit two exceptions - they’ll take Sept. 22 off and host Fort Stockton on Sept. 29, the week Pecos’ high school teams are idle, and they’ll face Midland Christian on Oct. 13 in Midland, the week the high school squads play Seminole.

Regional qualifiers to compete at Iraan meet

Just about all of the Pecos Eagles’ regional track and field qualifiers will be competing on Friday, in a qualifier’s meet at Iraan High School, though not all will be entered in all the events they’re expected to run next weekend, at the Region I-3A meet in Odessa.

Five girls and four boys qualified in 14 events for the regional meet, and on Friday, all but junior Jessica Florez will compete at the Iraan meet, which starts with field events and the 3200 meter finals at 4:30 p.m., followed by the remaining running finals at 7 p.m. Florez, who qualified in the discus and shot put, will be playing in Pecos’ softball game against Greenwood on Friday, but coach Veronica Valenzuela said two of her other three double-event qualifiers also would see limited action.

“I’m just going to have Jummy (Akinyode) run in the 200, to keep her a little bit rested before regionals,” she said. The senior placed second at district in the 200 meters, qualifying in that event for the third straight year, while winning the 400 meter dash in her first year competing in that event.

Valenzuela said the Eagles’ other running event winner, Heather Lamka, also would skip that race on Friday. “Heather’s just going to run the mile. She’s still having a little injury problem, and Kathryn’s going run in the two mile.”

Heather Lamka won the 3200 meters last Thursday in Fort Stockton and qualified for regionals by placing third in the 1600 meter run, while Kathryn Lamka qualified for regionals with a third place finish in the 3200.

The other regional qualifier for the girls, Chantel Mazone, will throw in both the discus and shot put at Iraan. Mazone won the shot put, and placed third in the discus at the District 3-3A meet. Florez was second in the discus and third in the shot put at district. Boys’ coach John Fellows will have all four of his regional qualifiers in Iraan, but said senior Rashad Terry wouldn’t run the event he won last week in Fort Stockton, the 200 meter dash.

“Rashad’s just going to high jump, and Yao (Ricardo Morales) will high jump,” Fellows said. Terry placed second and Morales third in the high jump at district, while Terry took the 200, but collapsed at the finish line when his leg tightened up for the second time in three weeks.

Morales and Pete Juarez will run in the 200 meters at Iraan. Juarez was second to Terry in that event, and Morales is a regional alternate, having finished fourth. The Eagles’ other I-3A qualifier is senior Chad Evans, who’ll compete in the discus competition after finishing third at Fort Stockton.

Eagle teams face Greenwood, Presidio

The Pecos Eagle girls softball team will be trying to play the spoiler’s role on Friday, while Pecos’ boys will try to avoid falling into that position on both Friday and Saturday, as the teams end long breaks with home games against the Greenwood Rangerettes and Presidio Blue Devils.

Pecos’ girls will actually play back-to-back home games, hosting Greenwood on Friday at 5 p.m., and then coming back the following day to close out their 2005 season against Presidio, in an 11 a.m. start.

The boys will play their final home game on Friday when they host Presidio starting at 7 p.m., then face Greenwood on Saturday, but on the Rangers’ home field, beginning at 3 p.m.

The Eagles have one more game after that, and are two games in back of Greenwood and Presidio in the loss column, after the Rangers rallied in the seventh inning last Friday to defeat the Blue Devils in Presidio, 5-3. That’s also their District 3-3A record, while the Eagles dropped to 4-5 on the season as they fell at home to Seminole by a 5-2 final score. Pecos needs to win both their weekend games, along with their final regular season game, next week in Lamesa, and then hope Greenwood loses one of their three other games left in the season, against Fort Stockton, Monahans and Lamesa.

“After last Saturday I told the kids it comes down to us winning out and hoping Fort Stockton or Monahans beats Greenwood to force a playoff so we can play them a third time,” Eagles’ coach Elias Payan said. “But to do that, we have to play better than we’ve been doing.”

The Rangers’ Logan Bawcom shut down Presidio last Friday, giving the Blue Devils their first loss of the season, and shut out Pecos on the Eagles’ home field last month, 2-0, as the Rangers used a pair of unearned runs in the first inning off Robert Nunez to get the win. Presidio defeated Pecos, 4-2 in their first meeting, as Armando Dominguez and Isidro Rocha hit back-to-back home runs in the fourth inning for the Blue Devils off pitcher Josh Anchondo, after Pecos had taken a 2-1 lead. Both Bawcom and Presidio’s Juan Aguilar two-hit the Eagles in the teams’ first district games.

For this weekend, Payan said he would start Eddie Vela against the Blue Devils and come back with Anchondo or Edward Valencia on Saturday at Greenwood. “It just depends on whether or not we have to use any relief pitchers,” Payan said.

Vela improved to 5-2 on the season last week, in the Eagles’ 4-2 win over Monahans. He also relieved Anchondo, who took the loss in last Saturday’s game against Seminole.

Pecos girls saw their playoff hopes ended two weeks ago by back-to-back two-run losses to Fort Stockton and Greenwood. They saw their district mark fall to 4-6 on April 12, when Monahans defeated Pecos by a 12-3 score, in a game the Eagles trailed by only 4-3 after 4 1/2 innings.

The Loboes then defeated the Rangerettes by a 9-3 score last Friday, handing Greenwood it’s first district loss. It was also their first district game without pitcher Kendall Schneider, who was lost to grades for the final two weeks of the season. She’ll also be gone for the opening round of the playoffs if 9-1 Greenwood loses to Pecos, and ends up in a tie for first with Monahans. A win over the Eagles and on Saturday over Lamesa would give the Rangerettes a first round playoff bye.

Coach Tammy Walls said she would use her regular starters in the game against Greenwood, but hoped to use some of her reserves on Saturday against Presidio. The Blue Devils are winless in district, and will play in Monahans on Friday before spending the night in Pecos for Saturday’s late-morning game. Pecos defeated Presidio on the road back in late March by a 24-2 final score.

“Today (Thursday), I’m going to look at some different combinations,” Walls said. “There are some kids who have been out there every day who haven’t gotten much playing time, and I want to reward them for all their hard work.”

Paige Crowell replaced Schneider as the pitcher for Greenwood and took the loss against Monahans. In the teams’ first meeting, Pecos took a 2-1 lead in the third inning on a two-run single by Jenny Palomino, but the Rangerettes rallied for two runs in their half of the inning, and scored once in the sixth inning off pitcher Amalie Herrera.

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