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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Friday, December 21, 2007
Martinez earns SLC golf award
Former Pecos Eagles golfer Shelly Martinez was named as the Southland Conference Women’s Golf Player of the Month in November, playing as a sophomore for the University of Texas-San Antonio.
Martinez earned the honor with a second place finish at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Beach Blast, shooting a two-over 75-71-146 to finish one shot out of first place in the tournament.
Martinez played for the Eagles between 2003 and 2006, advancing to state with Pecos as a team in his freshman and senior years and as an individual in 2005. She placed third in the Class 3A Tournament in 2005 and 2006, while Pecos was second as a team in 2003 and fourth in 2006.
Yellowjackets’ FTs do in Eagles, 68-61
There were a lot of shots being made from behind the 19-foot line and from behind the 15-foot line Tuesday night in the Pecos Eagles’ game against the Kermit Yellowjackets.
After struggling from behind the 3-point line for most of their two home games last week against Stanton and Coahoma, Pecos connected seven times from 3-point range on Tuesday in Kermit. But the Jackets also hit seven 3-pointers and had a nine-point advantage from the foul line as well, in a game where the teams combined for 72 free throws attempts in an eventual 68-61 Kermit victory.
“We got into some foul trouble,” said Eagles’ coach Sammy Soliz, who had to sit most of his starters during the middle periods of the game. “Basically, we’re going to play aggressive on defense all year long, but I didn’t expect us to get into foul trouble that early.”
Pecos held a 13-9 lead after one period, but was outscored in the middle periods by Kermit 39-25. That was still better than last Friday’s 25-point loss to Coahoma, and Soliz said, “For the most part, we had a pretty good game. But we had four starters sitting for most of the third quarter because of fouls, and not just three fouls. The had four on them, so the bench played a lot.”
J.R. Lujan ended up being the only Pecos player to foul out, and finished with 10 points, while guards Chris Sotelo and Edgardo Madrid led Pecos with 14 and 11 points.
“Edgardo played really well, and Chris Sotelo coming off the bench played well,” Soliz said. “Edgar hit some outside shots, Chris hit some outside shots and Timo (Reyes) also hit from the outside.”
“Jeremiah (Soto) really played well,” he added. “In the box score it only shows he scored eight points, but he came up with some big rebounds and held the post down for us.”
“He also had a couple of questionable calls go against him on charges, but they were called blocking fouls and that was tough, because when he stepped in there it was on lay-ups they made, so it was an ‘and one’ (foul) situation,” Soliz said.
Kermit was led by Austin Grubbs’ 16 points. He and Tyler Thomas (13 points) also combined for 23 of the Jackets’ 44 attempts from the foul line on Tuesday. The Jackets connected 24 time from the line, while Pecos also spent their share of time at the line, though not as much as Kermit, going 15-for-28 in the game.
The loss was the third straight for the Eagles and dropped them to 4-8 on the season going into their final game of 2007 on Friday night, at home against the Jal Panthers. Jal was the last team the Eagles own a win over, having beaten the Panthers by a 58-45 score in the third place game of the Oil Patch Classic in Wink on Dec. 8.
Kermit also won Tuesday’s junior varsity and freshmen boys’ games over Pecos. Soliz said Friday would start with the JV game at 6 p.m., followed by the varsity contest at 7:30 p.m. The Eagles’ next game after that will be against Nazareth, in the opening round of the Brian Wilson Tournament in Alpine on Jan. 4.
Foul problems cost Pecos in loss to Kermit
The Kermit Yellojackets’ 30 foul shots weren’t as big a difference Tuesday night as the Pecos Eagles’ 30 turnovers had been a month earlier, in the teams’ first meeting of the 2007-08 basketball season. But the foul problems the Eagles suffered that led to all those foul shots helped put Pecos’ girls in early foul trouble in a 43-35 win in Kermit by the Jackets.
“They’d be dribbling down and I felt like we’d be in position, but they’d call us for a hand check,” said Eagles’ coach Donna Gent. “Then when we’d go down they’d basically be mugging us, and we’d fall down, but they wouldn’t call it.”
Kermit ended up making 30 trips to the foul line to just 10 for Pecos, but scored only five more points than the Eagles. But Gent said Kermit was able to outscore Pecos 9-0 from behind the 3-point line, which gave the Jackets their margin of victory.
“We outscored them from 2-point range, but they hit some 3s and got 12 points from the line to just seven for us,” Gent said. “We were 7-out-of-10, which isn’t bad, but they took a lot more shots.”
“Gabby (Garcia) tried to take some charges. She was standing in position, and in any other situation would have been charges, but they called her for blocking fouls, and she got two fouls in a hurry,” she added.
Aside from their foul shooting problems, Gent said Kermit also lose guard Haley Hise in the first half to a knee injury. But Lucero Porras would take up the slack, scoring a team-high 11 points, including two 3-pointers, with most of that coming in the first half when the Jackets took a 22-16 lead.
Pecos was led by Claire Weinacht, who finished with 10 points. Gent said Garcia, who had 14 in the teams’ earlier meeting, was held to just four this time to go along with her early foul problems, while Jasmine Rayos, who finished with six points, would eventually foul out.
“Gabby had an off-night shooting. She just had four points,” Gent said. “Defensively, I thought we played well, but I felt like our offense didn’t. Even without the fouls, we missed a lot of shots.”
Kermit was whistled for eight fewer fouls on the night, but did lose Jackie Saucedo, who managed just five points after scoring 16 in the teams’ Nov. 15 meeting.
“Claire did an excellent job blocking out. That’s where she (Saucedo) got all of her fouls, trying to go over Claire’s back,” Gent said. Weinacht had eight rebounds, while Brittany Palomino had seven points and seven rebounds and Diana Parada had four assists.
Gent said the Eagles did get post Veronica Tarin back from the ineligible list for the first time since before Thanksgiving, and she finished with four points. “Veronica still needs to get a little more aggressive at rebounding. She may have been a little rusty because of the layoff,” Gent said.
The loss dropped Pecos back to .500 for the year, at 7-7, while Kermit improved to 10-4 on the season. The Eagles will remain on the road for their final two games of 2007, this Friday at Midland Lee and on Dec. 29 in Sweetwater. Play will start with the Eagles’ junior varsity against Lee at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, followed by the varsity game at 6 p.m.
Kermit also won Tuesday’s JV game, beating Pecos by a 46-30 score. Carissa Cerna led the Eagles with 11 points.
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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