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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas

Sports

Wednesday, November 4, 1998

Eagles' errors help Dumas score easy win


By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
LUBBOCK, Nov. 4 -- When they served, passed, and set the
ball the right way, the Pecos Eagles had pretty good success
spiking the ball past the Dumas Demons' front line Tuesday
night. But the Demons had a lot more success doing the
little things, and that translated into a two-game victory
over Pecos in the area round of the Class 4A playoffs.

Dumas ran a more complicated offense than Pecos was used to,
and it freed them from blockers several times in their 15-6,
15-5 victory at the Lubbock Estacado High School gym. But it
was as much the things the Eagles didn't do as what the
Demons did that ended their 1998 season.

"I'm not going to take anything away from them. They were on
tonight, but we had trouble serving and passing tonight,"
said Eagles' coach Becky Granado.

She added that the changes put in to defense Dumas may have
caused some of the confusion on defense for Pecos. "We threw
a lot of things at them this week, and they tried to
remember everything do to," Granado said, adding "They
changed some things up on us. We tried to read their hitters
and we were caught in the wrong position."

Dumas slid hitters behind their setters several times for
outside spikes, similar to the offenses seen in
college-level volleyball matches, but only occasionally
tried by Permian Basin teams. "This was the first team we've
seen that runs hitters on offense from all different angles.
My kids are not used to that type of offense," Granado said.

Even with all that, the Eagles still held a 6-3 lead in the
opener until their own mistakes began. Dumas was shaky at
the start, letting several balls hit the floor, while the
Demons had their own problems blocking Sherrie Mosby in the
early going. Beth Ratliff and Julie Williams both put a
couple of spikes into the net while Pecos built their lead,
but after a missed serve Dumas rallied, off a Breann Breland
kill, a failed over-the-head dink by Lily Payen and a bad
spike by Mosby.

The Demons took the lead on their own mistake, when the
Eagles allowed Wendy Artho's overset to fall inbounds for a
7-6 lead. The Demons got the lead up to 10-6, where it held
for several minutes, as the Eagles broke serve but then
missed three more serve attempts.

"We came out and had them 6-3 and I thought we would give
them a game, but once we missed that (first) serve it was
kind of difficult for us," Granado said.

The Eagles also held the early lead in Game 2, off a bad
spike by Jennifer Bonner and a tip of an overset by
Philonicus Fobbs. But a kill by Lacey Beauchamp sent Dumas
on a 9-0 run that featured more kills by Bonner, Ratliff,
Williams and Breland, and more missed serves by Pecos went
they did regain the advantage.

The eighth and final bad serve of the night killed the
Eagles' last chance at a comeback, after a block by Fobbs of
Ashlee Lawson made it 11-5. A Breland kill, a block of a
Monique Levario hit by Ratliff, and a bad serve reception by
Linsey Hathorn made it 14-5, after one final service break,
a soft dink by Williams over Pecos' front line ended the
match.

Hathorn suffered an elbow injury late in the match, while
the rest of the Eagles survived a fender-bender while going
through Lubbock on the way to Estacado. It delayed the start
of the match by 45 minutes, but Granado said outside of
having to change into their uniforms on the bus, she didn't
think the incident affected her players.

"I'm still proud of them. We didn't win, but we worked
hard," said Granado, who added the Eagles will have to
improve in several areas if they're to return to the level
of state championship contention they held when they faced
Dumas back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"We're going to have to work on setting, and passing is
another area we have to improve on. When the pass is not
there, it's hard to run your offense," Granado said.

Pecos ended their season with a 17-11 record while Dumas
improved to 27-9 and will face Canyon Randall in the Region
I-4A quarterfinals this weekend. Randall downed El Paso
High, 15-10, 15-11, in their area round match.

Malone expects Christmas opening for NBA


By CHRIS SHERIDAN
AP Basketball Writer
NEW YORK, Nov. 4 -- Did you miss the NBA last night?

This was supposed to be the first day fans could open their
newspaper or log on to the Internet and peruse the game
stories and boxscores from around the league.

That's not possible today, of course, because the NBA
lockout has put the season on hold. Last night's 10 games
are only the beginning of a parade of cancellations that has
no end in sight. Another 11 games were supposed to be played
tonight.

``If I had to guess, the first game will be Dec. 25, because
that's when NBC's money and the big chips are on the
table,'' Utah's Karl Malone said on ESPN. ``(David) Stern
wants players to miss two or three paychecks to start
feeling the message.

Stern was among the principal players in the 126-day-old
lockout who were scheduled to be back at the bargaining
table today trying to jump-start labor talks that have
stalled for the past week.

Also scheduled to attend the talks at a Manhattan law office
were deputy commissioner Russ Granik, union director Billy
Hunter and union president Patrick Ewing.

On Tuesday, boxes were piled high in front of the locker
where Ewing usually suits up. Exercise cycles and empty ball
racks were strewn about, mops were standing in the corner
and three garbage buckets were stuffed into Terry Cummings'
locker.

That was how things looked at Madison Square Garden, where
the New York Knicks were supposed to have opened their
1998-99 season against the Boston Celtics.

``Unfortunately, the Knicks' locker room has been turned
into a storage room,'' a tour guide explained. ``My best
guess is it will stay this way until January.''

``They have a pie, and they are fighting over how much of
the pie each side gets to eat,'' the Madison Square Garden
guide explained to a group of 16 tourists from the United
States, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Ireland. ``The
owners and players are each getting this much,'' he said,
holding his hands a few inches apart, ``and the owners are
trying to force the players to take this much,'' he said,
moving his hands within an inch of each other.

``They should all be disgusted with themselves,'' said
Sophia Bogdasarian, a tourist from outside of Boston.

If her words reflected the feelings of basketball fans
worldwide, the lockout moved into a new phase Tuesday as the
reality of canceled games hit home.

The league may be banking on the belief that basketball fans
are different from baseball fans and will be more likely to
forgive and forget when this dispute is finally resolved.

But an ESPN poll conducted Oct. 31-Nov. 1 found that almost
63 percent of sports fans over the age of 18 did not care if
the entire season was canceled, and more than 37 percent of
people who consider themselves NBA fans don't care if the
season is canceled.

``It will be an extraordinary amount of work,'' Stern said
of regaining fan interest. ``We will have to almost beg
their indulgence.

``If we do lose this season, we're nevertheless going to
come back and play eventually, and we hope that our
basketball fans will bear with us,'' he said.

Stern said progress at the bargaining table may be hard to
come by.

``It doesn't look so good,'' Stern said on MSNBC. ``I heard
that the head of the union, Billy Hunter, announced he
didn't think games would be played until January, and I
gather that somebody is worrying him, whether it's the
agents for the big players or whatever may have caused him
to change his tune.

``Obviously once we get into December without a deal, if
that occurs, then I'd say the season is in jeopardy,'' Stern
said.

In Oakland, workers at the Oakland Coliseum Arena were
getting ready to deal with the loss of income that missed
games represents.

``A lot of us do have other jobs. But we have a lot of
retired people,'' said ushers captain Kathy Blandford, who
has worked at the arena and the neighboring Oakland Coliseum
for the past two decades. ``For some, it's their lone source
of income. We have women who have Social Security, and
that's it. Without this, they can't make it.''

Yanks' year gets Torre manager's award


NEW YORK, Nov. 4 (AP) -- Joe Torre just tried to stay out of
the way.

While the Yankees manager said that was his biggest
contribution to his team's record-setting season, winning
125 games took more than just writing out the lineup card
every day.

Torre, who won his second World Series in three years with
New York, was honored Tuesday as The Associated Press
manager of the year. Torre received 85 votes from a panel of
writers and broadcasters. Torre also won the AP NL manager
of the year award in 1982 while with Atlanta. Since 1984,
only one award has been given for both leagues.

San Diego's Bruce Bochy finished second with 48½ votes,
followed by the Cubs' Jim Riggleman (20½), Houston's Larry
Dierker (10) and Boston's Jimy Williams (8).

``It's nice to get recognition,'' Torre said. ``During the
season we went through, you have one purpose in mind -- to
win the World Series. All of a sudden, the awards come along
and it's like a cherry on top of a great season.

``Somebody has to write a lineup and pat guys on the rear
end if they do well and make a pitching change now and then.
I was just along for the ride.''

But Torre did more than just ride his players to an
AL-record 114 wins during the regular season and an 11-2
postseason mark, capped by a sweep of the Padres in the
World Series.

In the media maelstrom of New York and with a meddlesome
owner like George Steinbrenner, Torre didn't flinch when the
team started 1-4. He exhibited remarkable patience and kept
his team focused on each game even though the Yankees ran
away from the rest of the American League by Memorial Day.

``When you get to the All-Star break with 61 wins, you
realize this has a chance to be a pretty damn good team,''
Torre said. ``I was cautious because it's hard to hold the
edge that long. It's a manager's job to always be concerned
and cautious and never look too far forward.

``I don't care how good you are, to win as many games as we
won is an incredible accomplishment.''

Torre played a major role in that feat by juggling his deep
lineup, letting players know their roles, and even calling a
team meeting to admonish his team after a particularly
lethargic performance at Tampa Bay in September.

Torre said his job was little more than writing out a lineup
card, making pitching changes and patting guys on the back
every once in a while. But his players know that baseball's
best team didn't operate on autopilot.

``For the most part, he lets us play,'' Bernie Williams said
during the World Series. ``He has a very good idea of what
everyone in the room can do and he doesn't expect anything
less from us. He doesn't expect anything more from us than
to play to our capabilities, and if we're not, he's going to
let us hear about it.''

Because of Torre's leadership and an extremely talented
team, the Yankees won more games -- regular and postseason
-- than any other team in history. Torre said winning more
games than any other Yankees team was the ultimate
achievement.

As for their rank in history, Torre said he hasn't seen a
better team in his nearly 40 years in baseball.

``You look at the Oakland A's clubs that won a few world
championships in a row and the Cincinnati club in '76 that
was always a standard for me, I think we have better
pitching than they have,'' he said. ``We have to take a
backseat to no one in my lifetime.''

All of the top five vote-getters led their teams into the
playoffs. Bochy won his second division title in four years
as a manager, winning a team-record 98 games and leading the
Padres to their first World Series in 14 years.

Riggleman's Cubs earned the NL wild-card berth and made the
playoffs for the first time since 1989. Dierker, in his
second year, won his second NL Central title for the Astros
with a team-record 102 victories. Williams, in his second
year in Boston, earned the AL wild-card berth.



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Pecos Enterprise
Ned Cantwell, 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

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Copyright 1998 by Pecos Enterprise