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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
Pecos netters seek 2-4A tournament title
The Pecos Eagles tennis team will try not to have a repeat of last year's
District 2-4A Tennis Tournament this year, when they travel to San Elizario
on Thursday for the four-team competition.
Pecos will take on El Paso Mountain View at 9 a.m., going into the tournament
as the No. 1 seed and seeking their fifth trip to the Region I-4A tournament
in the past seven years. That includes three straight trips to regionals,
but last year at district, the Eagles went in as the No. 1 seed only to
be upset by Clint in the finals, and ended up as the district's No. 2 seed
in regional competition.
Coach Mike Ortiz doesn't expect that to happen again this year _ the
Eagles earned the No. 1 seed last season with a narrow 10-9 homecourt win
over Clint, while this time, the Eagles went out to San Elizario and defeated
the Lions this past Saturday by a 10-2 score. The final five matches weren't
played after Pecos had clinched the victory and the No. 1 seed in Thursday's
tournament.
"With the girls I don't think there will be any problems," said Ortiz,
who is hoping for a sweep of Pecos' matches in singles and doubles play
on Thursday. "All I'll need is one victory from the boys."
Pecos defeated Mountain View at San Eli two weeks ago by an 18-1 score,
with the lone loss coming on the girls' side. This past Saturday the Eagles'
two losses came at No. 1 doubles, where Pecos was missing one of its two
regular players, in junior Trent Graham, and in the mixed doubles match,
where Orlando Mendoza and Kristina Dominguez were beaten by Daniel Sosa
and Bianca Armendariz.
"The mixed doubles should have won, but they had some mental lapses,"
Ortiz said. "But I think they'll win the next time."
Fabens will host Clint in Thursday's other 9 a.m. match, and the winners
of the Pecos-Mountain View and Clint-Fabens matches will play at 2 p.m.
in San Elizario, while the losers will face each other in Fabens at that
same time. The semifinal winners will advance to Region I-4A competition,
which will be held next weekend at Wichita Falls.
Eagles stay tied for 2nd despite sweep by Lobos
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
They played their worst game of the season in District 2-4A play Tuesday
night, but the Pecos Eagles still control their own destiny as far as the
Class 4A playoffs go, despite being swept by the El Paso Mountain View
Lobos.
The Eagles closed out their 2001 home volleyball schedule with a 15-8,
15-11 loss to the Lobos, who had already clinched the district title four
days earlier. The defeat dropped them back into a three-way tie with Clint
and Fabens for second place in the 2-4A standings with one regular season
game to play.
Senior hitter Diana Gonzalez did cause Pecos problems, scoring several
times on kills off quick sets. But coach Becky Granado was unhappy that
the Eagles created most of their own troubles and appeared to be intimidated
by the Lobos.
"We were so scared out there. We wouldn't move," Granado said. "We just
did not play smart at all out there."
Granado said Gonzalez took advantage of junior blocker Tiana Terry,
while the other Lobos did the same to sophomore Leslie Rodriguez. Meanwhile,
the Eagles' back line was caught flat-footed several times on Mountain
View serves and Pecos had problems when they had the ball, due to both
missing serves and hitting errors.
"We had nine kills and 15 errors. That does not even out," she said.
"And we missed seven serves and didn't take advantage of our chances when
we had them."
Pecos fell apart late in both games, after the score was tied at 8-8
in the first game and at 11-11 in the second. Terry did get one block of
Gonzalez for a point in the opener, which tied the game at 8-all after
the lead had changed hands four previous times, but Mountain View then
scored the game's fine seven points. Gonzalez had one kill during the run,
but the other points came off two ace serves by Zuly Ayala, a couple of
mishandled hits by Terry and Rodriguez, a back line collision going for
another serve by Christina Arenivas and Kathy Maldonado and a spike into
the net by Becca Wein.
In the second game neither team had more than a two-point lead until
Mountain View's final five-point run. The Lobos' Marlene Garcia and Laura
Torres had their own problems handling Pecos' serves on the back line in
the early going, while the Eagles scored four straight points to turn a
4-2 deficit into a 6-4 lead.
Arenivas had a spike for a point to tie the game in that run, and later
found an opening for a hit that gave the Eagles their last lead, at 11-10.
But another bad serve gave the Lobos the ball back, and they scored five
straight points on a pair of bad spikes by Arenivas, an ace by Garcia and
a pair of spikes by Gonzalez off bad passes over the net by the Eagles.
"We had too many missed serves and we missed every opportunity to score,"
said Granado, who did have to alter her lineup to make up for the absence
of sophomore Stephanie Herrera, who sprained her ankle while playing basketball
over the weekend.
The win improved Mountain View to 9-0 in district 21-3 going into their
final regular season game, Friday afternoon against Fabens. Pecos is 5-4
and 12-19, and are tied for second with Fabens and Clint, after the Wildcats
lost to the Lions on Tuesday, 15-11, 8-15, 15-12.
The Eagles will close out their regular season at 5:30 p.m. CDT on Friday
at San Elizario, which lost to Canutillo on Tuesday, 15-12, 7-15, 15-2.
A win would assure Pecos of no worse than a three-way playoff for the two
remaining District 2-4A post-season berths next week.
Mountain View also won Tuesday's freshman game over Pecos, 16-14, 15-12,
while the Eagles took the junior varsity contest, 15-7, 15-7.
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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