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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Eagles hosting Mustangs in 2002-03 hoop opener
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
The 2002-03 season opens tonight for the Pecos Eagles' boys basketball
team, while the season will start two days later than planned for Pecos'
girls team, as their schedule game tonight against the Crane Golden
Cranes has been cancelled.
The boys will start their season at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Pecos High
School gym against the Andrews Mustangs, following the opening game of the
season for the Eagles' freshmen, at 6 p.m. against Andrews.
The Eagles have a new coach this season in Joe Flores, but return most
of their players from a year ago, when Pecos finished with a 4-23 record,
1-7 in District 2-4A. That included two losses to Andrews, 59-38 in Pecos
and 56-37 on the Mustangs' home court.
"I'll start out with Isaiah (Armendariz) and Justin Lara as my 1-2 (posts),
Genaro Mendoza will be my point guard and Jose Reyes and Oscar (Parada) will
be my 2-3 guys (forwards), but I'm going to bring all of the guys in and
mix it up somewhat," Flores said. "Basically for the first two or three games
I'm going to throw people in in different situations. Hopefully by the holidays
we'll have a set routine."
Of the five, only Armendariz and Lara have been out for basketball prior
to this past Saturday. The others were all in football until then, as were
four other returning players, post Joey Ortega, forwards John Parent and
Jason Sanchez and guard Bino Barreno.
"The football guys, especially in defensive slide drills are as slow as
turtles right now," said Flores. "They're a little bit out of shape, but
most of them are athletes, and they'll be able to get in shape quickly."
Ortega was the Eagles' leading scorer last year, averaging about 10.5
points per game, as the team struggled with point production throughout the
season. Pecos' main problems last season were handling full-court pressure
from opposing teams and hitting shots from the outside to open up the defense.
Barreno was brought up in midseason to play point guard and Mendoza will
be handling the spot for the first time tonight on the varsity, against an
Andrews team that used turnovers created by their full-court press to jump
out to a 19-2 first quarter lead over the Eagles a year ago in their victory
in Pecos.
The Mustangs were able to make the Class 4A playoffs in football this
past Friday with a win over Big Spring, but Flores said while that may cost
them a few players for tonight's basketball opener, "They have more players
out who just play straight basketball."
Tonight's game is the first of two at home this week for the Eagles against
former district rivals. On Friday night, they'll host San Elizario, who beat
Pecos once in Andrews last season during tournament play and then once more
in District 2-4A play on the way to the Class 4A playoffs.
Pecos' girls had been scheduled to start their season at 6 p.m. tonight
against Crane, but coach Veronica Valenzuela said the Golden Crane's Class
2A area round volleyball victory over Sanford-Fritch this past Saturday led
to the cancellation of tonight's basketball opener. At the same time, the
Eagles' game Friday night in Alpine has been moved up a day to Thursday to
avoid a conflict with the Bucks' Class 2A football playoff game against Reagan
County on Friday.
Valenzuela did say the Eagles' freshman team would begin their season
as scheduled this afternoon, at home against the Monahans Loboettes. That
game is scheduled for 4:30 p.m., prior to the Pecos-Andrews ninth grade 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 news@pecos.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 2002 by Pecos Enterprise
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