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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Monday, September 24, 2001
Eagles get back on track with 62-8 win over Blue Devils
By JON FULBIRGHT
Staff Writer
Taking care of business is something the Pecos Eagles football team
had struggled to do during the first month of the 2001 football season
_ until Friday night.
The Eagles didn't come up with a perfect performance, but they did go
a long ways towards starting to turn things around after a shaky start
to the 2001 season, as they went to Presidio and routed the Blue Devils
by a 62-8 final score.
The Eagles scored twice in both the first and second quarters and added
three more touchdowns in the third period against the Blue Devils as part
of a 473-yard night on offense. Defensively, Pecos held Presidio to 88
yards in offense, 50 of that on their lone touchdown drive of the night,
late in the third period.
Coming off of back-to-back four touchdown losses to Fort Stockton and
Alpine, the Eagles needed to turn things around against Presidio both on
offense and defense. "We decided this week we would work on fundamentals
defensively and offensively we worked on running the option better," said
coach Gary Grubbs. "This gets us going on the right track. We're a better
football team than the way we were playing the last two weeks. We're still
a young team, but we've got to grow up, and this is what it's all about,
getting ready for when district starts."
Despite the 62-point effort _ the most points in one game by a Pecos
team in 55 years, since a 78-0 win over Stanton in 1946 _ the Eagles' night
didn't start perfectly, as they took the opening kickoff and drove down
to Presidio's 7-yard-line, only to fumble the ball away into the end zone
for a touchback.
It was the first of four turnovers on the night for Pecos, but that
was more than offset by the Blue Devils' seven giveaways, which didn't
include a play that resulted in the Eagles' first score. Jesus Baeza's
punt following the Eagles' initial turnover was blocked and recovered by
Peter Juarez, who ran untouched into the end zone for the first of his
two touchdowns on the night.
"Justin (Evans) pushed his blocker back, and the ball hit him," Grubbs
said of the play, which was followed three plays later by the first of
three interceptions quarterback Isidro Pando would suffered Friday. All
three went to safety Jason Gonzales, who picked off this one at the 29
yard line and returned it to Presidio's five, where Matthew Levario scored
the first of his four touchdowns in the game, going through untouched on
the left side of the line.
Presidio did get through the next series unharmed and then forced Pecos
into its only punt of the night. But the Blue Devils were unable to move
again on the next series, and as the first period ended the Eagles began
a nine-play, 53-yard drive that ended with Levario's second TD, this one
on a 16-yard run to make it 21-0.
Quarterback Freddy Torres, who provided almost all of Pecos' offense
the previous week running the ball against Alpine, began the drive with
a 16-yard run and finished the night with 17 carries for 142 yards. Oscar
Parada also made it over the 100-yard mark, finishing with 17 carries for
112 yards, and his replacement, Mason Abila, had a 20-yard gain late in
the first half that set up Torres' 16 yard scoring run with 1:43 to play.
Before and after that the teams exchanged turnovers, with Presidio recovering
a Torres fumble, then giving it right back when Pando fumbled on an apparent
first down run into Pecos territory. Will Armstrong recovered the ball
to set up the Eagles' scoring drive. Pando was sacked an fumbled again
after Pecos' fourth score, with Bobby Valenzuela recovering the ball, but
Abraham Uribe picked off Torres' pass to Ricky Plummer at the 5-yard-line
just before the half ended.
Valenzuela would recover another Pando fumble off a sack early in the
third period, just after Presidio's David Wentworth ran 15 yards for the
Blue Devils' initial first down of the game. Two plays later Abila went
over from 19 yards out to make it 34-0. Pecos missed the extra point, but
things went their way so much on Friday that they got the point back after
their next touchdown, when Levario picked up his own blocked kick and ran
it into the end zone for two points.
That came after Levario's two-yard TD run, set up by a 37-yard run by
Roy Jimenez one play earlier. That made it 42-0 before Presidio broke the
shutout thanks to a 34-yard kickoff return by Joseph Sauceda and Pando's
only two completions of the night, a nine-yard pass to Sauceda followed
two plays later by a 41-yard touchdown pass to Angel Garza.
Juarez had just missed intercepting a pass by Pando to Garza on 2nd-and-1,
and the TD came as he went for the interception again but saw the ball
go over his hands and into Garza's, who then had an open run to the end
zone.
Pando ran in the two-point conversion, but things went even further
downhill for Presidio after that. Uribe suffered a hyperextended knee and
Wentworth bruised his shoulder in the fourth period, leaving the Blue Devils
with only 15 players to finish the game. Meanwhile, Pecos responded to
Garza's score with their seventh touchdown late in the third period, a
2-yard run by Jimenez to cap a seven-play, 56-yard drive.
Torres scored on Pecos' next series, off a 13-yard run to finish off
a 69-yard drive that also included the Eagles' only pass completion of
the night, a 22-yarder from backup quarterback Richard Rodriguez to Abel
Lopez, who reached over Uribe to pull the ball in near midfield. Juarez
then played quarterback on the final series and scored on a 14-yard keeper,
after Parada had run for 46 of his 112 yards earlier in the drive.
Aside from the turnovers on offense, the Eagles' biggest problem on
Friday was kickoff coverage. Along with Sauceda's third period runback,
David Neri broke tackles on three other kickoff returns when he appeared
trapped deep in Blue Devil territory, which is something Grubbs said Pecos
can't afford to do this coming Friday, when they host Monahans for their
2001 homecoming game.
"We definitely have to get better in those areas. We're not going to
be able to turn the ball over or miss tackles like that against Monahans
and not pay for it in some area," he said.
Friday's game is both homecoming for Pecos and their final game before
the start of District 2-4A play in Clint on Oct. 12. Clint improved to
2-0 with a 23-10 win over El Paso Cathedral on Friday, while Fabens is
3-0 after upsetting El Paso Parkland, 34-23; El Paso Mountain View is 2-0
after routing Santa Teresa, N.M., and San Elizario fell to 0-2 with a 38-0
home loss to Deming, N.M.
Pecos rallies to get victory over Fabens
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
It wasn't quite the way Pecos Eagles' coach Becky Granado would have
liked to have seen her team come away with a win, but it was still way
better than what happened the last time the Eagles faced the Fabens Wildcats.
The Eagles, who looked bad in the final two games of their three-game
loss last month to Fabens in the new Pecos High School gym, didn't look
very good at the start of either game on Saturday in the old PHS gym, when
the teams met for their first District 2-4A match of the season. But unlike
the 15-3, 4-15, 4-15 loss in the Cantaloupe Classic Tournament, Pecos was
able to regroup this time after falling behind 13-6 in the first game and
14-7 in the second to pull out a 15-13, 18-16 win over Fabens.
"We didn't quit, and I'm very proud of that," Granado said. "They got
to game point and we still didn't stop fighting.
"We did a good job on defense, it's just on offense we're still having
a hard time getting anything going," Granado said, though the same held
true for Fabens, especially at the end of both games, when their leading
hitters Lizzy Avitia and Mari Lu Lopez couldn't get their kills down.
Avitia had a pair of kills in the first game to spark an 8-1 run by
Fabens that turned a 3-3 tie into an 11-4 lead. Lopez also had a kill during
that streak, which was finally ended when Christina Arenivas came up with
a block on Andrea Bustamante. But after cutting the lead to 11-6, the Eagles
lost serve and saw Fabens score twice off unforced errors before the Eagles
began their game-ending 9-0 run.
Jessica Martinez and Leslie Rodriguez had kills during the run, while
Fabens had three bad spikes for points and a couple of bad passes. They
included one by Suzie Mendoza at game point, after a block by Martinez
of a Mendoza tip tied the game at 13-13 and a bad spike by Lopez gave the
Eagles their first lead of the game.
Pecos wouldn't lead the second game until it was 15-14 when Arenivas
spiked a Fabens overset. The Wildcats earlier had gone out to 7-1, 9-2
and 12-5 leads, mainly due to the fact that even when the Eagles broke
serve, they couldn't get their own serves back over the net.
"I don't know what it is, a lack of concentration or what, but we need
to work on our serving," said Granado, whose team had the same problem
at home a week earlier against Presidio. "When we get our serves in I thought
the kids did a good job placing the serves. We watched the film of when
we played them in the tournament, and we were serving to the right spots."
Rodriguez had a couple of kills along with Arenivas in the 8-0 run that
took Pecos from a 14-7 deficit to a 15-14 lead, though the sophomore did
get overanxious at one point, and went to get her own blocked spike that
was headed out of bounds for match point.
"That's just inexperience. She was trying to save everything that comes
to our side," said Granado, as Rodriguez touched the ball, giving the Wildcats
back the serve. Fabens then scored twice, off a block out by Arenivas on
a Bustamante spike and a bad spike by the senior, to get to game point
again, before the Eagles were able to break serve and re-tie the score
on a tip by Arenivas.
Lopez then spiked a shot out to put the Eagles ahead 17-16, and Pecos
won when Bustamante couldn't get to a bad relay off a serve by the Wildcats.
The victory put Pecos in a four-way tie with Fabens, Clint and San Elizario
for second in the district standings, all with 1-1 records. Pecos is now
8-16 on the season, while Fabens drops to 13-5 overall.
The Eagles will be on the road for both their games this week, against
0-2 Canutillo on Tuesday night, and against 2-0 El Paso Mountain View this
coming Saturday. Mountain View defeated Canutillo on Friday 15-10, 15-2,
to take sole possession of first place in the 2-4A standings.
Fabens did win both of the sub-varsity matches on Saturday, taking the
freshman contest, 15-1, 9-15, 15-3, and the JV match by 15-6, 15-12 scores.
Bears shut down Cougars, 48-0
Round two of the three-round contest between the Balmorhea Bears and the
Dell City Cougars went all Balmorhea's way Friday night in Dell City, as
they bounced back from their first loss of the 2001 six-man football season
two weeks ago to shut out the Cougars by a 48-0 final score.
The Bears had beaten the Cougars last month in a scrimmage game at Van
Horn, and will face them again next month, in District 8-A six man play
at Balmorhea. Friday's game was a non-district contest, and the Bears ended
up allowing just eight yards on defense, while gaining over 350 yards against
Dell City, most of that on the ground.
"We played a little bit better overall. The only problem I guess you'd
say we had was our turnovers," said Bears' coach Ennis Erickson. Balmorhea
fumbled the ball seven times, losing four of them, which helped keep the
game going into the fourth quarter, before the Bears ended things under
the 45-point rule.
However, Dell City also had four turnover,s including three interceptions,
two which were returned for touchdowns. Arturo Rodriguez returned a pass
28 yards for a score just before halftime and Isaiah Rodriguez had a 60-yard
interception return for a score in the fourth quarter.
Robbie Mendoza had a pair of 1-yard TD runs for Balmorhrea, while Adriel
Ramon gained 112 yards for the Bears, more than half of that on a 61-yard
touchdown run in the second period. Urban Baeza had a 48-yard TD run in
the opening quarter and finished with 71 yards rushing on the night, and
also had a 25-yard touchdown pass to Joe Luis Lopez in the third quarter,
along with three extra point kicks.
The Bears ended up with 272 of their 357 yards overall on the ground,
while Dell City ended up with zero yards rushing and eight yards in total
offense.
"We really didn't have to do much else but run for the largest part,"
said Erickson, who had to play his starters most of the way on Friday.
"We had a JV game on Thursday, so I only had 10 kids on Friday."
The Bears will be back on the road this Saturday, for a neutral site
game at Klondike, south of Lamesa, against the Trent Gorillas. Saturday's
game replaces the scheduled contest this week against Grandfalls, which
did not have enough players for a full six-man team this year. Erickson
said the game on Saturday would be a 5:30 p.m. start at Klondike.
Pecos seventh grade girls win own tournament
The Pecos Eagles' seventh grade purple girls volleyball team came away
with first place in their own tournament on Saturday at the Pecos High
School gym, while Pecos' eighth grade purple team finished second to Monahans
in the eight-team tournament.
The seventh graders defeated Van Horn in the tournament title match
by 15-7, 15-9 scores, after defeating the Eagles' seventh grade white team
in the tournament semifinals, 15-1, 15-8. Pecos' gold team lost to Van
Horn in the semifinals, and ended up winning third place over the Eagles
white team.
All four of Pecos' seventh grade teams were entered in the tournament,
while all three eighth grade teams were in their division of the tournament.
The eighth grade purple team downed Fort Stockton in the tournament semifinals
before falling to Monahans in the title match, 15-12, 15-2, while Fort
Stockton ended up finishing third with a victory over Van Horn.
The Eagles junior high purple and gold teams will face Monahans again
this Thursday, with the seventh graders playing at Zavala Middle School
and the eighth graders at the Crockett Middle School gym.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 915-445-5475, FAX 915-445-4321
e-mail newsdesk@nwol.net
Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.
Copyright 2001 by Pecos Enterprise
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