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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Friday, April 16, 2004
Eagles in second at 4-3A track meet
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
The Pecos Eagles picked up five first place finishes on Thursday and are seeded first in three races going into today’s finals at the District 4-3A Track and Field Championships at Walton Field in Kermit.
Pecos is second to Monahans in the overall team standings in both the boys and girls divisions following the completion of the field events and the 3200-meter run on Thursday. The Loboes hold a wide lead on the boys’ side, with 98 1/2 points to 43 1/2 for Pecos. Greenwood is next with 24 points, followed by Kermit with 19, Fort Stockton with 18 and Presidio with 14.
“We’ve got as many people in the finals as Monahans, but where they’re going to score is the relays,” said Eagles’ coach Jerry Parent, who has struggled to field a 400 meter relay team this season. “Nobody’s going to catch them, but we’re going to try and stay ahead of the others.”
The 400-meter relay will start this evening’s events, at 6 p.m. in Kermit. The top two finishers in each event advance to the Region I-3A meet on April 30-May 1 at Ratliff Stadium in Odessa.
The margins are a little narrower on the girls’ side. Monahans leads with 74 points to 47 for Pecos and 43 for Kermit. Greenwood has 22 points, Presidio 18 and Fort Stockton 10 through seven of 17 events.
The girls had two first place finishes on Thursday, by Stephanie Herrera in the discus and Jennifer Martinez in the 3200 meter run. Herrera had won the District 2-4A discus title as a freshman and sophomore, but was disqualified last year at the 4-3A meet when the Eagles were cited for a rules violation by having a video camera available for viewing. There were no cameras around this time, but coach Roxie Chavez said Herrera almost missed out on a regional berth for the second year in a row.
“She kind of scared us. She scratched on her first two attempts in the preliminaries and had to power throw on the third,” she said. Herrera was able to stay within the ring and threw 115-feet-9 to take first place, while teammate Jessica Florez earned a regional alternates’ berth by placing third with a 106-foot-5 throw.
Herrera also qualified for regionals in the shot put, where she placed second to Fort Stockton’s Tammy Cash with a 38-foot-1 throw. Freshman Chantell Mazone, who was fourth in the discus, earned a regional alternate spot by taking third in the shot, with a 34-foot-7 effort.
Martinez pulled away from Kermit’s Amber Jones 600 meters before the finish of her race to win with a 12:49 time, just .11 second off the district record. She’ll try for a second gold medal this evening in the 1600 meter run.
Leslie Rodriguez placed sixth in the 3200 meters, and earlier took fifth in the girls’ high jump.
In the running preliminaries, the Eagles only qualified in one individual event, but in that one Jummy Akinyode is seeded first in the 200 meter dash, as she tries for a second straight district title in that race.
Rashad Terry is also seeking his second straight title in the 200 and is seeded first going into today’s finals. Terry won one of the Eagles’ three gold medals on Thursday on the boys’ side, taking the high jump with a 6-foot effort, while Chad Evans and John Parent captured the shot put and discus titles.
“Chad was ahead from the get-go, and John was, too,” said coach Robbie Ortega, though both had to survive late challenges to get their victories. Evans threw 48-feet-5 1/4 to beat out Monahans’ Tyson Willmon by half an inch, while Parent threw 149-foot-1 and beat out Greenwood’s Matt Boss by four inches.
Terry also took fourth place in the long jump and later edged out Monahans’ Richard Covington for top seed in the 100-meter dash. Covington beat Terry in the finals of the 100 a year ago at district.
“We even placed in the long jump and triple (jump),” Jerry Parent said, as the Eagles have struggled to score points in those events this season. Aside from Terry, picked up fifth and sixth place finishes by Alex Orosco and Pete Juarez in the triple jump, while Justin Lara and Andrew Grant were fifth and sixth in the pole vault, and Larry Johnson in the high jump and Gonzalo Reyna in the 3200 meter run finished fifth in their events.
Neither the boys or the girls were able to qualify a runner in the hurdles on Thursday, but the boys did placed Orosco and Jeremiah Mora in the finals of the 400-meter dash. They’re seeded second and third, behind Monahans’ Tyquelly Fletcher.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
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 by Pecos Enterprise
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