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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Friday, October 31, 2008
Eagle boys, girls golf teams in Andrews for tourney
The Pecos Eagle boys and girls golf teams will both be in Andrews this weekend competing in fall tournament play, after the girls placed sixth in their division at the Abilene Halloween Invitational this past weekend.
Pecos shot a 763 in their division, which was won by Snyder with a 698 score. “They divided it up the second day after the first day scores,” said Eagles’ coach Tina Doan. “It was an exciting tournament for them.
Pecos shot a 373 on Friday, before going up to a 390 on Saturday. “They did well the first day but had a harder time on Saturday playing on a tougher course,” Doan said. “Tatum (Windham) individually was sixth in her division and overall she was 26th out of 105 golfers.”
Windham shot an 82-86-168 for Pecos, while Ari Alligood shot a 93-97-190, Katrina Hinojos shot a 98-105-203, Samantha Sparkman had a 100-102-202 and Rina Pino shot a 106-105-211.
“Overall this was a pretty big tournament, with mostly 5A schools,” Doan said, though along with Snyder, Andrews, which shot a 684, and Sweetwater, which shot a 742, also were in the group of Class 3A schools at Abilene. “We got to see what the other schools are doing and who they’ll have to beat beginning in March.”
Doan said she plans to take six girls to Andrews this week, and will have two more out when winter/spring golf play begins in February.
Cross-country in EP Saturday for 4-3A meet
The Pecos Eagle girls will be trying to defend their 2007 district title in cross country on Saturday against what figures to be tougher competition, when they run in the District 4-3A meet at Chamizal National Memorial Park in El Paso.
Pecos’ boys also won their district title a year ago, but coach Rudy Jurado said the Eagles will be one runner short of the minimum needed for a team score, when the district meet takes place at 9 and 9:30 a.m. MST, in El Paso.
“I’ve got five girls to make a team, but only four guys, so I’m a little devastated,” Jurado said. “One of the boys apparently had been working too much and hasn’t been showing up for practice, so he won’t be able to go.
“I was looking forward to taking two full teams. The only time we’ve done that this year was San Angelo, but the good part is the ones who are left are my best runners, so hopefully it will go good for us.”
Runners from Clint and Fabens will be favored in the meet, and those two teams were usually among the top finishers the last time the Eagles were paired with El Paso area schools.
Pecos has run against Fabens once this year, with Gabriela and Jackie Gonzales placing second and third at the Lubbock Invitational in late September. They finished the two-mile run seven and nine seconds ahead of Pecos’ top runner that day, Krystal Carrasco, who along with Kayla Natividad has had the best times for the Eagles so far this season.
On the boys’ side, Clint’s Fred Cordero will probably be the favorite, after running a 14:40 last weekend at the San Elizario Invitational, while in the team standings, Tornillo placed third in the final meet before district.
For Pecos, Edward Rodriguez and Gus Mendoza have had the best times for Pecos’ boys this season, but their times over the three-mile cross country courses have been averaging around 17:30 to 18 minutes this season.
Pecos hasn’t run at Chamizal, located south of the Interstate 10-U.S. 54 interchange, since the Eagles were part of the old District 2-4A from 1998 to 2001, but Jurado said he expected the course to be similar to what it was back then.
“There’s a sand terrain in the back of the park, which makes it a little big difficult, then you come back into the main part of the park to finish the race,” he said. “It’s not as hilly a course as some of the others, but it’s got the sand and a little slope. Otherwise, it’s a pretty flat area.”
District swimmers face off at Big Spring Invitational
It won’t quite be an exact preview of January’s District 4-4A swimming and diving championships this weekend in Big Spring, but the Pecos Eagles will get to see all but one of their district rivals, and no one else on Friday and Saturday, at the annual Big Spring Invitational.
Diving will take place Friday evening, while the swimming finals will start late Saturday morning at the Big Spring YMCA pool, and coach Terri Morse said unlike past years, this year’s meet will be a small one.
“There are only six teams because there’s a big meet in San Angelo, so all the 5AS teams are going there,” she said. “Usually Big Spring’s meet is earlier in October, but this year its on the last weekend, so the only ones who are going to be here is our district, except for (Abilene) Cooper, which is going to San Angelo.”
“We’ll still get to see what the other teams have. We’ve already seen Cooper, but we haven’t seen Andrews yet this year,” Morse said. Pecos placed second on the boys and girls’ side two weeks ago at the Abilene Invitational, where Cooper, Abilene Wylie and Big Spring also competed, and have already swam against Monahans and Wylie in dual meets earlier this season.
Morse said she’d have almost all of her team out for this weekend, and would be swimming them in their normal events. She did say they play to keep senior swimmer and diver Hector Roman out for one more weekend, following his latest surgery to repair damage from last February’s auto accident.
“They’ve still got to cut the butterfly (stitches) out, so we probably won’t dive him in this meet,” she said. “He gets his butterflies off Monday, so we’ll go ahead and wait.”
Pecos seeks playoff spot with victory in Anthony
A win over the Pecos Eagles at home last year sent the Anthony Wildcats on their way to the Class 3A playoffs.
Friday night in Anthony, the Eagles will try to turn that result around, as they’ll be looking to clinch their first playoff berth since 2001 with a win over the Wildcats, when the teams meet in Anthony starting at 7:30 p.m. CDT.
Anthony came into last year’s game unbeaten while Pecos was winless, and the Wildcats rallied from a 6-0 halftime deficit for a rain-soaked 26-6 victory. Anthony ended up placing third in the district and advancing to post-season, while the Eagles would end up with just two wins, beating Fabens and Tornillo.
Those are the two teams the Eagles also have beaten this season, downing the Wildcats two weeks ago by a 61-14 score and then beating Tornillo at home, 50-7. That’s the same score Anthony defeated the Coyotes by to open their district schedule, but it was also their first win of this season and in the last two weeks, they’ve lost a 34-21 decision to Clint and were beaten at home last Friday by Fabens, 29-27.
“Anthony’s a lot better than their record,” Eagles’ coach Chris Henson said. “They’ll fight the whole way through, so I expect a tough ballgame start to finish, so we’ve been stressing we need quality play from our starters all week.”
The Wildcats lost a number of key players both at the skill positions and on the line to graduation, but do return players who scored three of Anthony’s four touchdowns in last year’s win, in quarterback Luis Alvarez and running back Mike Lugo. Alvarez ran for 75 yards and a touchdown and passed for another 95 yards and a TD in last year’s win, while Lugo ran for 120 yards and two touchdowns, most of that coming in the second half.
“He’s very, very quick and can throw. He’s a very elusive runner,” Henson said of Alvarez, who got outside Pecos’ defense last year for a 25-yard TD run that clinched the Wildcats’ victory.
“We’ve done a lot of reps with speed drills this week,” he said. “The key thing week going in with his speed is stopping the quarterback counter. It’s really the thing that concerns me on our defense.”
Last week against Fabens, the Wildcats held Lugo to just 57 yards but Alvarez rushed for 248 yards and two touchdowns and threw touchdown passes to Lugo and Carlos Hernandez in the losing effort.
?“Lugo is very quick as well. He’s not as big, but has tremendous speed” Henson said. “He (Hernandez) is playing really good right now. They’re putting him into different slots,” Henson said.
Defensively a year ago, Anthony allowed Hector Ramirez to run for 96 yards, including Pecos’ only touchdown, but held Timo Reyes to just one yard rushing. Reyes was coming off an injury in that game, and Henson said the senior, who leads Pecos in rushing with 620 yards, was hurt in last week’s 50-7 win over Tornillo.
“He turned his ankle a little against Tornillo, so we held him out of practice the last two days (Monday and Tuesday),” Henson said. Ramirez only carried the ball once last week, a four-yard TD run on Pecos’ first offensive play, as the Eagles scored 37 points in the opening period.
“Anthony’s not as big all around, but they’ve got a lot of kids who can run on offense and defense, and that’s what they’re going to try and do on defense, bring a lot of kids,” Henson said. “No. 71, Luis Gomez is their middle linebacker. He’s a senior who’s started for them for a few years and he’s great at timing the snap counts, which is something we’ve been working on this week.
“We’ve been going over last year’s game tape and they hurt us a bunch. We’d get something going and they’d shoot the gap or we’d miss a block and they’d end up making the play in the backfield,” he added.
Henson said the Eagles would get two linemen, Bert Sotelo and Travis Gomez, back off the ineligible list for Friday’s game, while Isaiah Patino is back from a fractured hand suffered at the start of this month, though none of the three are scheduled to start against Anthony.
While a win would clinch a playoff berth for Pecos, Anthony needs a victory to keep their playoff hopes alive, and then either a win over Fort Stockton next week or a Pecos loss at home to Clint. Fabens also has an outside chance of advancing to the playoffs, depending t he results of their final two games, against Fort Stockton and Tornillo.
“The kids have been focused all week,” Henson said. “They know how much this means to the program, getting back into the playoffs, and they don’t want to take any chances with having to win the Clint game next week and hope things work out right.”
Netters close fall season with loss at Ft. Stockton
The Pecos Eagles tennis team ended the fall portion of their 2008-09 season with their first loss of the season on Monday, dropping a 18-13 decision in Fort Stockton to the Panthers.
The result was the reverse of last month’s 21-10 win in Pecos by the Eagles over the Panthers, but only two matches on Monday, at No. 2 girls doubles and No. 10 boys singles, matched up the same players as in their first meeting on Sept. 23, due in part to the addition of several boys’ on the Panthers’ side and the absence of several girls on the Eagles’ side.
“I did not have three of my top girls, but the majority of our wins came from the girls’ side,” said Eagles’ coach Bernadette Ornelas. “We only had two wins on the boys’ side.”
Derrick Barron defeated Dillon Chamblee, one of the Fort Stockton players who didn’t make the trip to Pecos last month, at boys No. 2 singles, while No. 9 singles play Allen Medina downed Bode Mills for the other win on the boys’ side.
The girls got wins in singles and doubles play from No. 2 seed Dakota Long, who beat Desiree Navarette and teamed with Meagan Fuentes to beat Navarette and Sayra Natividad in doubles. Further down, No. 7 though 10 seeds Meagan Lopez, Roccio Munoz, Sarai Vargas and Julie Licon also scored wins in both singles and doubles play.
“We’re still a young team on the boys’ side, but on the girls side we’ve got a few more older players and should come through with wins,” Ornelas said.
The Eagles next matches won’t be until late January, when they open their winter/spring season. Along with Fort Stockton, Pecos will be in a district along with Fabens, Clint, Anthony and Tornillo for tennis during both the district team and individual tournaments.
Boys Singles
Geronimo Ornelas lost to Jorge Sanchez, 8-1; Derrick Barron defeated Dillon Chamblee, 9-8 (7-1); P.J. Castillo lost to Joseph Burzynski, 8-3; Elias Alvarado lost to Jose Reyes, 8-6; Teg Lozano lost to Anthony Agundez, 8-1; Eddie Pando lost to Kalan Thomas, 8-4; Avery Valeriano lost to Alec Millam, 8-2; Juan Carlos Munoz lost to Dylan Magee, 9-7; Allen Medina defeated Bode mills, 8-3; Mateo Tarango lost to Sebastian Renteria, 8-4.
Girls Singles
Meagan Fuentez lost to Geneva Young, 8-6; Dakota Long defeated Desiree Navarette, 8-2; Jessica Munoz defeated Sarya Natividad, 8-0; Mareen Maneje lost to Landi DeLaO, 8-3; Andrea Rodriguez defeated Sayra Fierro, 6-3; Meagan Lopez defeated Regina Cardenas, 6-1; Andrea Rodriguez defeated Jenica Gomez, 6-3; Amanda Renteria defeated Mikayla Galvan, 8-4; Megan Lopez defeated Rachel Gaylor, 8-1; Roccio Munoz defeated Ashley Castaneda, 8-5; Sarai Venegas lost to Regina Cárdenas, 8-2; Julie Licon defeated Alex Franco, 8-0.
Boys Doubles
Barron and Ornelas lost to Sanchez and Burzynski, 8-2; Castillo and Alvarado lost to Magee and Reyes, 8-3; Pando and Lozano lost to Mills and Thomas, 9-7; Valeriano and Medina lost to Chambley and Rodriguez, 9-7; Tarango and Munoz lost to Millam and Gasset, 8-0.
Girls Doubles
Fuentez and Long defeated Navarette and Natividad, 8-0; J. Munoz and Maneje lost to Young and DeLaO, 8-6; Rodriguez and Renteria lost to Gaylor and Gomez, 8-5; Lopez and R. Munoz defeated Cardenas and Franco, 8-3; Vargas and Licon defeated Castaneda and Gaylor, 8-4; Alley Morales and Jasmine Espino defeated Aleshia Ortiz and Melissa Calzada, 8-2.
Eagles down Prowlers to close out district
The Pecos Eagles volleyball team wrapped up their first undefeated district season in 18 years on Tuesday night in Fort Stockton, as they closed out District 4-3A play with a perfect 10-0 record after a 25-16, 25-13, 25-21 win over the Fort Stockton Prowlers.
The Eagles had clinched their first district title in since the 2000-2001 season this past Saturday with a win over Fabens, and Tuesday’s victory was their first perfect season in district since going 12-0 back in 1990, part of a string of 76 straight district wins the Eagles recorded over a six year period.
“We had the opportunity to play everyone and get them a little bit of experience,” said Eagles’ coach Ruth McWilliams. “We finished 10-0 and the girls were excited about that.
“We came out and played well overall. There were some spots where we had a little bit of confusion, but when you’re playing with newer people that happens sometimes,” McWilliams said.
The Eagles led almost all the way in the each of the first two games, while struggling a bit with Fort Stockton in Game 3, as McWilliams got all her players some court-time, with the Eagles not due to play again until next weekend, in the area round of the Class 3A playoffs against Borger, the second place team out of District 1-3A, or Abilene Wylie, which beat out Graham for third place in District 2-3A.
“Kristen Ikeler and Brittany Palomino both spilit time at libero and did really good jobs. They passed the ball well, served well and played good defense,” McWilliams said. “Aileen Rayos served well and is continuing to improve at the setting position, and Marissa Tarango came up and got a few kills for us, and Talia Castillo got into the second game and set well.
“Really, all our people off the bench did a good job, even if we slipped a little in the third game because of the newness of the lineup. But we came back and won it anyway.”
The win overall was the 16th straight for the Eagles and put them at 27-11 going into next week’s playoff game against Borger or Wylie. The winner of the area round game, which will probably be played on Thursday, Nov. 6 or on Saturday, Nov. 8, would eventually face Seminole, Clint or Brownwood for the right to advance to the Region I-3A Tournament in Lubbock.
Fort Stockton did score wins in both the freshman and junior varsity matches, handing the Eagles’ JV their first loss in 4-3A play this season. The JV lose by 25-19, 19-25, 25-19 scores, while the ninth graders fell to the Prowlers, 25-21, 25-14.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
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