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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Thursday, October 25, 2001
Eagles head to Mountain View for district meet
Running a cross-county meet at a high school might seem like running on
an easy course _ unless your school is like El Paso Mountain View High
School.
Mountain View, out in the sands and near the foothills of northeast
El Paso, will be the site of this year's District 2-4A cross-country meet,
scheduled for 10 a.m. CDT time on Saturday.
Coach Rudy Jurado said the girls would run their two-mile race first,
followed by the boys' three-mile cross-country competition.
The 2-4A meet has been held in Fabens the past two years, and was held
in southeast El Paso back in 1998. Mountain View's Angela Reyes will be
favored on the girls' side, and Irving Alvidrez of San Elizario will be
the favorite in the boys' division. Reyes ran a 16:01.65 last Saturday
and Reyes at a 13:14 at the El Paso Burges Invitational.
Jurado said he would have five runners on the boys' side for Saturday's
district meet, where the Top 10 finishers will advance to regionals in
Lubbock. "Jason Sanchez is the one who has a shot at it. I'm not saying
it's easy, but he has a realistic shot," Jurado said.
"I looked at the time out there and 10th place would be a
17:44. Jason ran an 18:10 so to have a chance he's got to cut at least
30 seconds and probably more off that," the Eagles' coach said.
Pecos' other runners are Alex Orozco, Jeremiah Mora, Raul Garcia and
Eagles hope to continue Canutillo's bad luck run
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
What could have been a match-up of two undefeated teams in District
2-4A on Friday instead will be a battle between one undefeated team and
one winless squad trying to keep their playoff hopes alive, when the Pecos
Eagles travel to Canutillo to face the Golden Eagles in an 8 p.m. CDT start.
The Eagles, winners of four straight, and the Golden Eagles, losers
of four in a row, will meet in Canutillo for the first time in three years,
with the host squad in need of a victory to stay alive in the 2-4A playoff
race.
Pecos has won both its district games so far in impressive fashion,
shutting out Clint two weeks ago, 36-0, then routing Fabens at home last
week, 45-14, despite allowing the Wildcats to gain over 450 yards.
Canutillo, meanwhile, allowed Fabens less than 300 yards offense the
previous week, but the Wildcats made a pair of early touchdowns stand up
in a 14-7 win. Last Friday, the Golden Eagles were tied with El Paso Mountain
View late in the game and appeared to be driving towards the go-ahead score
when they turned the ball over, and allowed the Lobos to go the length
of the field to score and win, 18-12, keeping Mountain View tied for first
with Pecos in the 2-4A standings.
"Offensively we've moved the ball, but we just turn it over at inopportune
times," said Canutillo coach Scott Brooks. "We turned it over at the Fabens
4, and last week it was 12-12 with 1:40 to go when we threw an interception."
"They're a very big team," said Eagles' coach Gary Grubbs. "Defensively
I feel like they're very aggressive. They do a lot of stunting, which could
cause us problems up front in passing situations."
None of the current Eagle players were around for Pecos' last trip to
Canutillo. The Eagles went into that game unbeaten in district, but saw
the Golden Eagles wipe out Pecos leads in spans of 16, 24 and 25 seconds,
the last on a Hail Mary touchdown pass as time expired, which gave Canutillo
a 26-23 win and a share of first place with the Eagles in the final 2-4A
standings.
The past two seasons Canutillo has played well on defense, but has run
into problems generating much on offense. This season, the Golden Eagles
have mainly relied on the running of tailback Hector Saldivar, who has
gained 894 yards in six games this season.
"He ran well against Mountain View," said Grubbs. "I've been impressed
both with their quarterback (Julian) Lopez and with Saldivar."
Lopez returns from last season. His completions and yardage are about
the same as Eagles' quarterback Freddy Torres, but the senior has thrown
only two touchdown passes this season to go with seven interceptions.
"Part of the problem is we don't have any big play receivers," said
Brooks. "Every time we go deep we turn the ball over.
"He's done a good job running what we've asked him to do. He just hasn't
thrown the ball the way he should," he added.
Saldivar was bothered by an ankle injury in Canutillo's loss to Fabens,
but Brooks said, "He's healthy" for Friday's game, though there are other
players hurting. "We're banged up. It really started with the (El Paso)
Austin game, and went on from there."
Linebacker is one spot where Canutillo is hurting, Brooks said, but
the Golden Eagles still have senior Jacob Gaytan available. "The bomber's
fine. He's the one who makes us go on defense," the Golden Eagles' coach
said.
"Cornerback Ray Barrios has four picks (interceptions). He's played
real well. And we have a super linebacking corps, but it's just been banged
up week to week," said Brooks, who added he may bring up a few players
from Canutillo's idle junior varsity team for tonight's game.
"Secondary-wise they send their `backers so much that to me it puts
the secondary in a bad situation at times," said Grubbs. "Their philosophy
is they're going to get to the quarterback before he throws it."
Along with Gaytan, Brooks said defensive ends Carlos Torres and Eddie
Garcia have played well. Garcia accounted for Canutillo's only touchdown
against Pecos last season, stealing the ball from a pile up and running
61 yards for a touchdown.
Grubbs said Mountain View "used some big plays to score," which is how
Pecos beat Fabens last Friday. Matthew Levario scored on a 53-yard run
and 89-yard kickoff return, Peter Juarez had a 75-yard TD pass, 39-yard
TD run and a 40-yard interception return to set up a Levario field goal,
and Torres had a 50-yard scoring run to go with his TD pass to Juarez.
Grubbs said all the starters for Friday's game would be the same, but
the Eagles would get three players back _ Tomas Valles, John Saenz and
Oscar Archuleta _ who missed last week's game.
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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