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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Friday, December 29, 2006
Eagles host Mustangs to end holiday break
It’s been a while since the Pecos Eagles have faced the Sweetwater Mustangs in girls’ basketball. But the teams will be a little familiar to each other on Saturday, when Pecos hosts Sweetwater in a 3:30 p.m. start.
The Eagles have been off since Dec. 12, when they dropped a 71-38 decision at Big Spring to the Steers. It left Pecos with a 4-7 season record while Sweetwater comes in with a 7-10 mark, following a 73-66 loss to Roby.
The teams were members of the same district back in the 1980s and 1990s, but haven’t faced each other in recent years, or in early season play this year on the basketball court, and haven’t gotten a chance to watch the other play at any tournaments during the past month. But most of the players for both teams are the same ones who faced each other last month in the Region I-3A volleyball quarterfinals, when the Eagles upset the Mustangs to advance to the Region I-3A Tournament.
“Sweetwater will be pretty tall, because their volleyball team was pretty tall,” said Eagles’ coach Debbie Garcia, and the Mustangs’ top scorer in basketball was also their top hitter in volleyball, senior Tika Smith. She scored 17 points in the loss to Roby and had 14 points in Sweetwater’s 65-58 loss to Andrews in the game prior to that.
Her sister, Bennie Smith, who was the No. 2 hitter in volleyball for the Mustangs, is among the other top scorers in basketball as well. She had 12 points in the loss to Andrews, while Raven Rudel had 14 against Roby.
The Eagles loss to Big Spring came after Pecos had beaten the Steers by two points on Dec. 1 in Monahans. Garcia said the Steers used hot shooting to pull away from Pecos in the rematch, but added the Eagles would have to work on improving their defense and rebounding.
Pecos returned to practice on Wednesday after the Christmas break, though Garcia said she was still without three players for the first day of practice. “I don’t know right now if they’ll be back, but hopefully they will,” said Garcia. “If not, I’ll probably have to bring someone up, because I’ll only have eight.”
Play Saturday is scheduled to begin with the junior varsity Eagles and Mustangs at 2 p.m. The game is the first of three for Pecos before school resumes. They’ll have two road trips next week, going down to Ozona to face the Lions on Tuesday night and then over to Greenwood on Friday to face their former District 3-3A rivals, the Rangerettes, before coming home to take on Jal on Jan. 9.
Pecos’ boys won’t be back in action until Jan. 2, after going 2-1 at the Fort Stockton Tournament the weekend of Dec. 14-16. The Eagles, who are 6-9 on the season, will have a Tuesday afternoon game next week at home against Andrews, followed by a game Friday afternoon versus Jal.
Pecos will face Andrews on Tuesday starting about 3 p.m., following the freshman game at 12 noon and the JV at 1:30 p.m. The Jan. 5 games against Jal are JV and varsity only, and will begin at 12 noon and 1:30 p.m.
Thanks to the four-team districts for Class 3A teams in West Texas set up by the UIL in basketball this season, the Eagles will be playing non-district games through Jan. 16 for the girls and though Jan. 19 for the boys. District 1-3A girls play starts on Jan. 19 at home against Presidio, while boys play begins a week later in Fort Stockton.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
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Copyright 2003-04 by Pecos Enterprise
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