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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Pecos seeking to fill holes on 2002 track squad
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
The 2002 track season opens on Saturday for the Pecos Eagles at the
Sandhills Relays in Monahans, though boys coach Jerry Parent doesn't
expect to have a full team available until sometime in March.
"We've still got enough to run a full varsity and dang near a full JV,"
said Parent. "I won't have Tony (Trujillo) or some of the others Saturday
because they have college visits and next weekend the (powerlifting) regionals."
Other extracurricular events, along with grades, will leave Pecos minus
at least a few others through Spring Break, and as a result, Parent said
there are several spots on the team unsettled.
The Eagles finished fourth at last year's District 2-4A track meet at
Canutillo with 61 points. They send only one runner to regionals a year ago,
in 400 meter runner Daniel Terrazas, who has graduated, but will get to host
the district meet this April, the first time Pecos has hosted district competition
since 1983.
After Terrazas, the closest the Eagles came to a regional berth last year
was the 400-meter relay. But a hamstring injury suffered by Ricky Plummer
forced Parent to substitute in the finals at district, and Pecos ended up
botching a handoff and fell from second place to fourth.
Right now, Parent said, "I'm still trying to find our 400 (meter) relay
team. I won't know until I sit down tonight and work on it. Some of them
are still trying to get into shape after getting out of basketball."
Tentatively, he said Peter Juarez, Will Armstrong, Jason Gonzales and
Jack Bradley would be this weekend's relay team, while Jason Sanchez, Juarez,
Plummer and Justin Mora should be the four making up the 1600-meter relay
team. Juarez and Gonzales are back from last year's 400-meter squad, while
Sanchez, Juarez and Mora ran with Terrazas at district in the 1600 a year
ago.
Armstrong is the Eagles' lone returning medal winner, having placed third
in the pole vault at district last season. He and Justin Lara, who was fourth
at district, will be the Eagles' two vaulters this season, and Parent said,
"We should be in pretty good shape there."
While Trujillo is out this weekend on a trip to Texas Tech, Parent said
the Eagles would have three entries in the discus on Saturday at Monahans,
in Jae Ewing, John Parent and Job Navarette, while Juarez, Sanchez and Isaiah
Armendariz would compete in the triple jump. Juarez was fourth and Navarette
fifth in those events at district a year ago.
In the hurdles, Jason Gonzales placed fourth at district in both the 110
and 300-meter races last April, and would be back again, along with Parent
and freshman Jack Bradley.
Mora finished sixth in the 800 meter run at district, but overall, running
events outside of the 400 meter dash have been Pecos' weak spot in recent
years. This year, the Eagles again will be searching for sprinters, though
Jerry Parent is hoping the distance races will fare better.
"In the 3200 we'll have Isaiah Juarez running along with freshman Joshua
Cobos, who's a pretty good freshman. I'll have Jeremiah Mora in the half-mile
and Justin Mora may run the half and quarter. I'll have to decide," he said.
Plummer and Alex Orosco would be the Eagles' runners in the 400 meters.
Eagle boys seeded fifth at three state events
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
The Pecos Eagles are seeded fifth in a trio of events on the boys'
side, going into this weekend's Class 4A State Swimming and Diving
Championships at the Jamail Center in Austin.
Meanwhile, Pecos' best seed in the girls division is a No. 11 spot in
their opening race of the day on Friday, the 200 medley relay, as the Eagles
try to get into the finals for the first time since the 4A state meet began
three years ago.
Pecos cruised to victory in the girls division all season long, including
easy wins at the District 3-4A and Region I-4A competitions, while Pecos'
boys, with fewer swimmers, struggled in the early part of the season, while
winning district and regionals by a comfortable margin over Big Spring. But
at the state meet, the regional times give the boys better seedings going
into Friday's preliminaries, though not as good as the past two years, when
they went in seeded No. 1 in the 200 medley relay.
Pecos placed third in the state finals in that event each of the past
two years, while picking up one other medal in individual competition at
the state meet. This year the 200 medley team goes in seeded fifth, with
a 1:44.91 time, which is 4.6 seconds behind the top-seeded Cedar Park team.
The other two qualifiers seeded in the top six are both members of the
medley relay team, sophomores K.W. Winkles and Will Oglesby. Winkles is seeded
fifth in the 100 yard breaststroke with a time of 1:03.90, which is 2.1 seconds
behind top seed Aaron Payne of Cedar Park, while Oglesby is fifth seed in
the 100 yard butterfly despite coming in third at regionals, behind Abilene
Wylie's John Ouimette and El Paso Ysleta's Omar Abla. Oglesby has a time
of 54.41 seconds going in, while Willis' Chris Thornton is the No. 1 seed
with a 52.83 time, while Ouimette and Alba are the No. 3 and 4 seeds.
Eagles' coach Terri Morse said last week, that the scoring system at the
state meet would be changed this year, and points would be awarded to all
16 qualifiers based on their finishes, instead of only to the Top 12 as in
the first two years of the 4A state meet.
Pecos' boys were able to finish fifth in 2000 and seventh in 2001 at state
under the old scoring system, but the girls managed to qualify only one swimmer
for the final day of the meet the past two seasons, in Rachelle Eisenberg,
who placed 12th a year ago in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Eisenberg won the event again at district and regionals, but goes into
Friday's preliminaries seeded only 15th in that event. The highest
individual seed is freshman Teddie Salcido in the 500-yard freestyle, where
she's ranked 14th going into the meet. Salcido is also seeded
15th in the 200-yard freestyle, while Jessica Minjarez is seeded
16th in the 100-yard butterfly.
All three girls are part of the 200 medley relay team, which is seeded
11th with a 2:02.22 time. Cedar Park is seeded first with a time
of 1:54.02. The Eagles' 400-yard freestyle relay team is seeded 14th
, with a 4:05.45 time.
The boys' 400 yard freestyle relay team will go into that event seeded
seventh with a 3:28.44 time, 10.4 seconds behind top-seeded Cedar Park. Oglesby
qualified for one other event at the state meet, the 100-yard backstroke,
where he's seeded 16th, while in 1-meter diving, Michael Juarez
will dive fourth out of the 16 competitors in the 4A state finals. Juarez
is the first Pecos diver to earn a trip to state after winning regional competition,
and his 263.90 total is ranked 13th among the divers entered at
state.
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
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Copyright 2002 by Pecos Enterprise
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