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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Boys place 14th in final pre-district tourney
The Pecos Eagles boys golf team placed 14th on Thursday at the rain-delayed Seminole Invitational, the last tournament for Pecos before District 3-3A play begins in April.
The Eagles shot a 359 on the day, while the host Indians won the tournament with a 322 score. All six district golf teams made the trip to Seminole, which will be the site of the final round of this year’s 3-3A tournament.
While the rain ended and the weather was warmer, coach Kim Anderson said, “It was blowing 40 to 50 mph over there. The kids from Muleshoe (Trevor Turlow) must be real good to shoot a 72.”
Turlow won medalist honors, and only nine golfers on the day were able to break 80 in the windy conditions. The best scores for Pecos were a pair of 83s by senior Michael Nichols and sophomore Joseph Tarin. Jake Weinacht was next for Pecos with a 94 score, followed by Matt Oglesby with a 99 and Jesse Prieto had a 102 on the day.
“Jesse came down on his score, and Matt Oglesby broke 100 in his first tournament out from swimming,” said Anderson, who was without golfer Zack Morton, who was attending a livestock show in Houston.
Midland Trinity was second in the tournament with a 334 score, while Odessa Permian was third with a 336. Among the other district teams entered, Lamesa shot a 338, Monahans a 339, Fort Stockton a 342 and Greenwood had a 386 score.
“Lamesa had an ‘A’ and ‘B’ team and they split their kids up,” Anderson said. “They’ll have them together for district, so it will probably be Seminole and Lamesa, with Monahans, Stockton and us chasing them.”
Lamesa hosts the District 3-3A tournament opener on April 1, while Monahans will host the second round of the three-round tournament. Pecos’ girls open their district tournament at home on March 30, with Fort Stockton and Midland hosting the other two rounds of play.
Eagles collect five gold medals at Sandhills track
The Pecos Eagle boys picked up four gold medals and six medals overall on Saturday at the Sandhills Relays in Monahans, while Pecos’ girls had one gold medals and three medals overall in their third meet of the 2005 season.
Seniors Chad Evans and Rashad Terry both took home a pair of gold medals, as Evans won both the shot put and discus, while Terry took the high jump and the 200-meter dash. He was also part of the 800-meter relay team that finished third in their race, while Ricardo Morales earned the Eagles’ other medal, taking third behind Terry in the high jump.
The girls’ gold medal came from junior Jessica Martinez, who won the 3200 meter run, while senior Jummy Akinyode placed second in the 400 meter dash and sophomore Chantel Mazone did the same in the shot put.
Evans won the shot put for the third time in as many events this season, though his winning throw of 49-foot-2 was about two feet shorter than his personal best effort the previous week at the West Texas Relays. However, after faulting on all three throws in the discus the previous week in Odessa, Evans won the event on Saturday with a 157-foot-2 throw.
“I’m not sure if that’s his personal best or not, but I think it is,” said Eagles’ coach John Fellows. The throw was 24 feet better than Evans’ best throw two weeks earlier at the West of the Pecos Relays, when he placed second. On Saturday, he beat out San Angelo Central’s Clint Cole for first by three inches, and finished over two feet ahead of Greenwood’s Brad Crow in the shot put.
Terry won t he high jump for the second straight week, going 6-foot-2 at Monahans after clearing 6-4 in Odessa. Morales earned third with a 5-foot-8 effort. In the 200, Terry won with a 22.38 time, almost one second faster than at the West Texas Relays, where he placed second to Monahans’ Tyquelly Fletcher, who did not run that event this week.
Terry, who qualified for state last year in the 100 and 200-meter dashes, didn’t run the 100 for the second week in a row due to tightness in his leg. “It was still real cold in the morning, so I scratched him from the prelims. Then it cleared up in the afternoon,” Fellows said.
In the 800-meter relay, the Eagles picked up their first medal of the season with a 1:33 time, four seconds behind Monahans and one second in back of San Angelo Central. “We ran 1:33, which is pretty good, even though we weren’t at full strength,” said Fellows. “I’m hoping we can get Pete (Juarez) eligible for this week.”
With Juarez out, Fellows said he was forced to scratch his 1600-meter relay team after Justin Hannsz injured his foot while running the hurdles earlier on Saturday.
Pecos finished with 59 1/2 points overall, with their final 1 1/2 points coming from Andrew Grant, who tied for fifth in the pole vault with an 11-foot jump.
Pecos’ girls ended up with 41 points, with 14 of those from Martinez, who won the 3200 in her first race of the year at that distance. “We were just trying to see what she has a better shot at,” said coach Veronica Valenzuela. Martinez had not run the 3200 this season because of the tougher competition at regionals, where she qualified last season in both that race and the 1600 meters.
She did not compete in Odessa, while running in the 800 and 1600 meters in Pecos. However, Valenzuela said, “She wasn’t real happy with the way she ran the 800.” On Saturday, Martinez was fourth in the 1600 meters.
Akinyode qualified for regionals in the 200 meters last year, but did not run in that event on Saturday, after finishing second to Seminole’s Erin Sheets by 1 1/2 seconds in the 400 meter dash, with a 1:04.10 time. “Doc (trainer Joel Birch) didn’t want her to run it. He didn’t know if she was getting cramps, or if she might have a muscle pull in her abdomen,” Valenzuela said. “She was OK running the prelims, but when she work up from her nap in started hurting. She ran the 400, but we scratched her from the 200.”
Like Martinez, Mazone also missed last week’s West Texas Relays, after winning in Pecos two weeks ago. At Monahans, she placed second to the Loboes’ Jenna Fann with a 37-foot throw, while Jessica Florez finished fourth, throwing 32-feet. In the discus, the two placed fifth and sixth, with Mazone throwing 102-feet-11, and Florez going 99-4 on her best throw.
For this week, both Eagle teams have shortened their planned trips. Instead of going to the Cotton Patch Relays in Wall on Thursday, Pecos will compete at the Badger Relays in McCamey on Thursday, starting at 2:30 p.m.
Pecos’ hitters shut down by Monahans in 6-1 loss
The fewer hits you get, the fewer mistakes on defense you can afford, and the Pecos Eagles had no hits on Friday in their game against the Monahans Loboes.
The Eagles still managed to get a run, the first in District 3-3A play off Monahans, but the Loboes had seven hits, and used a couple of fielding mistakes by Pecos to score single runs in the second, fourth and fifth innings and three others in the third, as Monahans ended up with a 6-1 victory.
“They had us off-stride and off-balance, but their pitching is good,’ said Eagles’ coach Tammy Walls. “But I was a little disappointed we didn’t hit their first pitcher.”
The errors and passed balls helped Monahans, but the Loboes were able to do a better job overall putting the ball in play against Pecos’ Amalie Herrera than the Eagles were against starter Heather Schuler or reliever Raquel Hawkins, the Loboes’ No. 1 pitcher who came on in the sixth inning after the Eagles started making a little contact against Schuler.
Monahans took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when Hawkins singled down the left field line, went to third on a sacrifice bunt and a bloop single by Staci Fuentes and scored on a passed ball by new catcher Jessica Florez, as Walls moved the junior in from shortstop, while Bianca Baeza went to centerfield and Vanessa Valeriano came in from center to take over Florez’s position.
Savannah Ewing would make a leaping catch on a Dina Ortiz line drive to stop Monahans from scoring any more in the second, but in the third she would throw away a hard grounder by Ortiz with two away, allowing the third and final run of the inning to score. Monahans had made it 2-1 on a leadoff walk to Breanna Cheney and a double passed a diving Jenny Palomino in left field by Schuler, who scored after Valeriano dropped Lupe Navarette’s pop up, off an infield hit by Hawkins.
The Eagles did avoid any more problems when Herrera picked Navarette off third base, and Fuentes was later throw out at home trying to score after the throwing error by Ewing. Pecos would also close out the fourth inning with a strong defensive play after an error gave Monahans another unearned run, when Baeza made a diving catch of a Hawkins line drive to center and then doubled Cheney off third base.
Katlin Mitchell had reached first on a passed ball third strike to open the fourth inning, and after she was forced at third on a Cheney grounder to Valeriano Bailey Markham would score on another passed ball following a walk and a single by Schuler. Monahans’ final run came in the fifth inning on a single by Mitchell that scored Fuentes, who reached on an error by Ewing.
“We had some costly errors, but I thought we also made some plays we weren’t making before. We came up with a couple of good plays to keep them from scoring,” Walls said.
An error by Fuentes in the third inning helped get the Eagles their run. She booted Jenny Palomino’s one-out grounder after Schuler had walked Cassandra Terrazas and Ewing. Herrera followed with a grounder to shortstop that Hawkins fielded and threw to third, forcing Ewing as Terrazas scored.
Schuler then came back to strike out Danielle Garcia to end the inning, and the Eagles were unable to take advantage of a one-out error by Cheney at third base in the fourth inning. She threw away Hillery Hinojos’ grounder, but would then throw out Valeriano to end the inning, after Schuler got Baeza on a slow bouncer to the mound.
“I don’t like to lose, but I saw a lot of positive things about this game on defense,” said Walls, whose team fell to 2-2 in district play, and 5-8 on the season.
Monahans, which is looking for its third straight district title and a return to the Class 3A state tournament, is now 3-0 in district and 10-3 on the season. But the game was also the first for the Loboes after the school administration decided to fire head coach Kasey Kenny, effective at the end of the current softball season. School officials fired coach Amy Wilson last year, after the Loboes advanced to the Class 3A state semifinals before losing to Lindale.
Thanks to a couple a schedule changes, the Eagles are off until March 29, when they resume their District 3-3A schedule with a game against Lamesa. Pecos’ non-district game against Marfa on Tuesday was cancelled, while their Thursday game at Greenwood has been moved to Saturday, April 9, at 11 a.m. due to a conflict with one-act play competition.
Monahans 0 1 3 1 1 0 0 -- 6 7 2
Pecos 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 -- 1 0 4
Schuler, Hawkins (5) and Ortiz. Herrera and Florez. W - Schuler. L - Herrera
E - Monahans Fuentes, Cheney. Pecos, Ewing 3, Valeriano. LOB - Monahans 8, Pecos 5. DP - Pecos 1. 2B - Monahans, Schuler, Navarette. S - Monahans, Jarrett. SB - Monahans, Fuentes.
WP - Pecos, Herrera 2. PB - Monahans, Ortiz. Pecos, Florez 5.
Eagles down Panthers, Loboes in 3-3A openers
Eddie Vela didn’t allow any big hits on Thursday, and Josh Anchondo didn’t allow any big hits to anyone who wasn’t named Larry Jasso on Friday, as Vela posted his first shutout of the season, beating the Fort Stockton Panthers, while Anchondo came back to get Jasso when it counted in the sixth inning on Friday against the Monahans Loboes, to give the Eagles a sweep of their District 3-3A openers.
Vela shut down Fort Stockton in Pecos’ rain-delayed district opener, 6-0, and Anchondo then survived a pair of home runs by Jasso, as the Eagles rallied from a 3-0 deficit to defeat the Loboes at home Friday night, winning by a 6-3 final score.
Anchondo, the Eagles’ No. 1 pitcher last season, had worked only 3 2/3 innings so far this season, including two innings in Pecos’ season opener against the Loboes, before leaving the game due to knee problems that led to arthroscopic surgery the following week. Friday was his first game back, and he ended up with a six-hit, 14-strikeout victory, though it took Pecos until the fourth inning to finally break through on starter Kevin Kenyon, after Jasso’s homers staked the Loboes’ pitcher to a three-run lead.
“He served up the first one on a hanging curveball, and on the second one he (Jasso) just did a good job of turning on the ball,” Eagles’ coach Elias Payan said of the home runs, the first to left field and the second over the fence in center. “Other than that Josh did a good job. He had 14 strikeouts and got the outs at the end when he needed to.
“Offensively, we put the ball in play and finally got something going, and our kids came through at the end,” Payan said. “We got a big run when Javier Mendoza came in to pinch hit and drove in a run, that’s what we want from the kids.”
Memdoza’s pinch single with two outs in the sixth made the score 6-3 and came after Jasso came up in the top of the inning with the tying runs on base, after Miguel Gonzales had a bunt single and Kenyon walked with no one out. Anchondo struck out Tico Olivas and Jasso, then fanned Mike Gonzales to end the inning after the runners moved up on stolen bases.
Earlier in the game it was Kenyon who came up with the strikeouts to avoid trouble, after giving up singles to Jose Chavez, Vela and Isaiah Rayos to open the first inning. He fanned Anchondo and Jonathan Garcia, and then got Robert Nunez on a pop out to end the threat. Olivas then opened the second with a single and Jasso homered to give Monahans the lead.
Kenyon didn’t fare as well against the same three batters the second time around, when Pecos came back after Jasso’s second home run in the top of the fourth to take the lead. Anchondo opened the inning with a ground-rule double to right-center field, and Garcia followed with an RBI single while Nunez reached on an infield hit. After a fielder’s choice grounder by Chris Garnto, Kenyon hit Miguel Estrada with a pitch and second baseman Travis Reed then hit Estrada again, this time as he was trying for a force out at second on a Kenny Rayos grounder.
Estrada ended up on third base as Pecos tied the game and scored on a Chavez ground out to give the Eagles a 4-3 lead. Vela then singled to make it a 5-3 game.
Monahans would get the tying run up to the plate in the seventh inning, after a lead-off single by Reed and a one-out single by pinch hitter Shane Merrick. But the Eagles survived a collision by Chavez and Anchondo on a Kenny Almanza pop up, forcing Merrick at second after the ball hit the ground, and then Anchondo fanned Miguel Gonzales to end the game.
In the win over Fort Stockton, the Eagles played errorless ball to support the five-hit pitching of Vela, who improved to 3-1 on the season. The junior struck out eight batters and never allowed the leadoff hitter to get on base in his seven innings of work.
“When we got a couple of runs, I knew Eddie would bear down and pitch well,” Payan said. “Our kids did a better job on defense, and they know what they have to do now that district has started, if you want to be a top-notch baseball team.”
At-bat, the Eagles missed a couple of early chances to score off Panthers pitcher Bry Arcides before taking advantage of a series of Fort Stockton errors to score once in the fourth inning and five more times in the fifth.
Garcia, who took a ball to the head by accident while running out to right field for the top of the second inning, doubled off the fence in left field in the bottom of the inning, Garnto then singled and Nunez was hit by a pitch, but Arcides came back to strike out Kenny Rayos and then got Estrada to ground to second base to end the inning.
In the third, the Panthers pitcher went into self-defense mode when Anchondo lined a one-out shot back to the mound with one away and Vela and Isaiah Rayos on base. Arcides gloved the ball for the second out and then doubled Vela off second base to end another threat.
In the fourth, the Eagles finally got a run, thanks to a throwing error by catcher Octavio Contreras. After Garcia singled and stole second with one out, Arcides struck out Nunez on a curveball that got away the catcher. He recovered the ball and threw to first, but sailed his throw over Josh Rodriguez’s head, allowing Garcia to score.
Fort Stockton would commit six errors in the next inning, allowing Pecos to break things open. Third baseman Rugby Barragh began the problems, booting Jose Chavez leadoff grounder and then throwing it by Rodriguez to put Chavez on second, where he scored on Vela’s RBI single. He went to second on a passed ball and scored when Bryant Gonzalez threw away Isaiah Rayos’ grounder.
Anchondo then singled home Rayos, and after a fielder’s choice grounder by Garcia and a strike out by Garnto, Nunez singled to right field, with the ball going through the legs of outfielder Adrian Gonzales. That allowed Nunez to go to third, and he scored when the relay throw from second baseman Sergio Corral hit the Eagle baserunner in the helmet and bounced down the left field foul line.
“Their pitcher did a good job with his curveball and moving it around. We just have to recognize that and be more selective at the plate,” said Payan. “It’s something we’ve talked about, drawing at the plate a little box, and if the pitch is not in it, don’t swing at it.”
Fort Stockton would finally get a runner to third base in the seventh inning, after one-out singles by Contreras and Barragh and a ground out by Billy Bradshaw, but Vela would strike out pinch hitter Eloy Lopez to end the game and preserve his first shutout.
Monahans came into the game after losing their district opener to Presidio, while Fort Stockton bounced back to beat Lamesa after their loss to Pecos. Vela improved to 3-1 on the season, while the Eagles are now 7-8 going into their 7 p.m. game on Tuesday against Seminole in a rematch of the bi-district round of the playoffs the past two seasons.
The Eagles swept the Indians in bi-district two years ago, while Seminole avenged those loses last May by sweeping Pecos out of the playoffs. The teams already have played once this season, with Pecos scoring a 5-2 win behind Vela at the Sandhills Tournament earlier this month. Pecos then plays Greenwood at home at 7 p.m. on Thursday, a day earlier than usual due to the Good Friday holiday.
Thursday
Ft. Stockton 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -- 0 5 7
Pecos 0 0 0 1 5 0 x -- 6 7 0
Arcides and Contreras. Vela and Garnto. W - Vela (3-1). L - Arcides.
E - Fort Stockton, Contreras 2, Barragh 2, B. Gonzales, A. Gonzales, Corral. LOB - Fort Stockton 6, Pecos 5. DP - Fort Stockton 1. 2B - Pecos, Garcia. SB - Fort Stockton, A Gonzales. Pecos, Garcia 2. CS - Fort Stockton, Franco, Pecos, I. Rayos.
HBP - Pecos, Nunez by Arcides. PB - Fort Stockton, Contreras 2. Pecos, Garnto.
Friday
Monahans 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 -- 3 6 2
Pecos 0 0 0 5 0 1 x -- 6 8 1
Kenyon, Jasso (5) and Olivas. Anchondo and Garnto. W- Anchondo (1-0). L - Kenyon.
E - Monahans, Reed, Almanza. Pecos, I. Rayos. LOB - Monahans 5, Pecos 4. DP - Monahans 1, Pecos 1. 2B - Pecos, Anchondo. HR - Monahans, Jasso 2. SB - Monahans, Mi. Gonzales, Kenyon. Pecos, Garcia, Nunez. CS - Pecos, Vela.
WP - Monahans, Kenyon 2. PB - Pecos, Garnto.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
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Copyright 2003-04 by Pecos Enterprise
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