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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
Tourney funding improvements at golf course set
A tournament will be held at the Reeves County Golf Course at the end of April to help raise funds for the golf course, according to course groundskeeper Peter Mora.
The two-person scramble will be on April 30 and May 1, and will be flighted after the opening round. The funds will go towards improvements at the golf course, which is in the final stages of adding three new holes to the 11-hole facility.
For further information, contact Mora at 448-0807, or call the golf course pro shop at 447-2858.
LL sets Saturday as try-out day
Tryouts for the 2005 Pecos Little League will be held this Saturday at the Chano Prieto Little League field, and registration is already underway for the upcoming season.
League official Pablo Briones said the season would begin on April 23, and sign-ups for this year will be $30 per player, and an addition $15 per player for families with more than one child participating in Little League.
The league is open to boys and girls between the ages of 8 and 12, and forms are available at Gibson True-Value, Wal-Mart and Auto Zone in Pecos.
The league’s season will run from late April to mid-June. Tournament play will open at the end of the month, and Briones said Pecos will be in a new district for 2005 that includes teams closer to the area, like Monahans and Fort Stockton. Pecos has been paired only with teams from San Angelo for the past several years.
Final district grid coach vacancy filled
The third and final vacancy among District 3-3A football coaches was filled last week, with the appointment of Tom Howard as head coach and athletic director at Fort Stockton High School.
Howard, who coached at Fort Davis and has spent the past seven seasons at Henrietta, replaced Gary Roan, who resigned earlier this year to take a similar job at Stamford. He was approved last week by the Fort Stockton ISD board.
Earlier in March, former Monahans assistant coach Mickey Owen was named as the new head coach and athletic director for the Loboes, replacing Larry Hannah, while Steven Taylor was named to replace long time head coach and athletic director Bob Purser at Greenwood High School.
Owens had been serving as head coach at Ballinger, while Taylor was out of coaching last year, after serving as head coach at Ozona, and prior to that in Denver City.
Nichols shares 1st round lead in district golf
Pecos Eagles senior Michael Nichols tied for first place in the medalist race on Friday, at the opening round of the District 3-3A golf tournament in Lamesa. But the Eagles’ other golfers struggled through their first round of play, leaving Pecos in fifth place overall going into the second round on Tuesday at Monahans.
Nichols shot a 76 to tie Seminole’s Brady Shivers for first place though the first 18 holes of the 54-hole tournament, but coach Kim Anderson said the Eagles are 26 strokes behind the first place Tornadoes, and 15 shots behind fourth place Monahans.
“It was blowing and cold, but that’s not an excuse. They’re used to play in the cold,” said Eagles’ coach Kim Anderson. “Mikey was playing as hard as he could, but I was really disappointed in my 2-3-4 golfers. It was windy, but they all could have played better.”
Joseph Tarin shot an 87, Jake Weinacht had a 93 and Zack Morton shot a 95 for the other three team scores. Pecos’ fifth ‘A’ team golfer, Matt Oglesby, had a 111, while the two individual golfers for the Eagles, Jesse Prieto and Frank Deishler, shot 112 and 114 on Friday.
“We’ve got the Monahans course on Tuesday, and Tarin, Morton and Weinacht know that course better, so we should do better,” Anderson said, while adding that with the final round of the tournament in Seminole, Nichols will have to have a good round at the Ward County Golf Course to beat out Shivers for individual medalist honors.
“Mikey’s going to have to build up a little lead on Tuesday to hold him off, because he didn’t do that well up there,” Anderson said, referring to the Eagles’ March 17 tournament on the Gaines County course in Seminole.
Only five golfers broke 80 at Lamesa, including the Tornadoes’ Jordan Chapman and Randall Whitley. They shot 78 and 79 to give the Tors a three shot lead over Seminole in the team standings. Lamesa had a 325 to Seminole’s 328. Monahans’ Victor Calzada, with a 78, was the other golfer to break 80, but the Loboes’ 336 left them four shots in back of Fort Stockton in the standings. Greenwood was sixth, with a 372 total.
Pecos’ girls are in second place in the standings after the first round of their 3-3A tournament last Wednesday at home. The second round of the girls tourney is this Friday, at Hogan Park in Midland.
Eagle boys 7th, at SA; girls get 5th at Seminole
The Pecos Eagle boys’ track team had a good day in the field events at the San Angelo Relays, but got a scare on Saturday during the running events at the two-day meet.
Pecos’ Chad Evans captured a pair of first place finishes, while Rashad Terry lost out on a gold medal through a tiebreaker and placed second in the high jump on Friday, and the Eagles ended u with 36 points in the field events for the Class 3A division at San Angelo. But coach John Fellows said Terry suffered an injury on Saturday and failed to place in either of his two individual events, and Pecos managed just 28 more points and wound up seventh in the final standings.
Pecos’ girls also were short a few runners up in Seminole on Saturday, where they picked up five medals overall and finished fifth, with 44 points, at the Indian Relays.
Evans won both the discus and shot put for the third consecutive track meet. He had his second-best throw of the season, a 153-foot-9, to win the discus by 20 feet, and captured the shot put with a throw of 49-feet-7 1/2 inches.
Terry cleared 6-feet to place second in the high jump, based on number of misses, as Abilene Wylie’s Derek Smith won the event, also with a 6-foot effort. But Fellows said the senior suffered some type of leg injury on Saturday.
“He jumped in the 100 and did not finish that race,” Fellows said. “I think it was a real, real bad cramp,” though it could possibly be a hamstring problem.
“We’ll treat it this week, and by the end of the week try to get him running again,” Fellows said, though he won’t run at this Saturday’s Golden Crane Invitational in Crane. “We’re just going to try and get him ready for district.
Terry, who qualified for state last year in the 100 and 200-meter dash, did run as a member of the 800-meter relay team, along with Pete Juarez, Larry Johnson and Ricardo Morales. That group finished with a 1:32.49 time to place second, three seconds behind first place Sweetwater. Fellows said Johnson, Juarez, Morales and Justin Hannsz placed for the first time this season in the 400-meter relay, taking fourth with a time of 45.23. In the 1600-meter relay, Pecos was sixth with a time of 3:29.23.
Pecos also picked up points from Morales in the high jump, as he was fifth with a 5-10 leap, the same as Brady’s Dustin Tally and Wylie’s Case Keenum. He was also fifth in the triple jump, with a 35-foot-5 1/4 effort. Pecos’ other running event points came in the 300 meter hurdles, where Hannsz was fifth with a time of 43.89.
“I took nine boys, and I think everybody placed in something,” Fellows said. “We did well as far as the kids we took down there, and I think we would have been up there with the 18-20 points Rashad would have gotten.”
Abilene Wylie won Division III title with 144 points to 102 for Sweetwater, while Ingram was third with 85 points.
Monahans scored 187 points to win the girls’ division at Seminole, while Levelland was next with 128. Pecos’ 44 points included five medals, with he best finish for the girls on Saturday came from freshman Heather Lamka in the 3200 meter run. Her sister Kathryn was among four Eagles to pick up third place medals on the day.
Heather Lamka had a 13:58.27 time in the 3200 while Kathryn was third with a 14:47.06 time. The two also placed fourth and fifth respectively in the 1600 meter run later in the day.
The other third place medals came from Jessica Florez, Chantel Mazone and Jummy Akinyode. Florez won her medal in the discus with a throw of 102-10, while Mazone was fifth in that event with a 93-foot-10 1/2 effort, and won her third place medal in the discus, with a throw of 36-foot-10. Akinyode ran third in the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:04.02, and later placed fourth in the 200 meters, with a time of 27.30 seconds.
“I was missing one hurdler this week due to a quincenera,” said Eagles’ coach Veronica Valenzuela. She also had another runner who failed to make the bus Saturday morning, while one of her sprinters, Shatavia Hightower, was again hampered by a knee problem.
“We have a couple of other runners, but they’re not ready to run varsity, and I have five or six other throwers, but they’re JV, so I only took two of them this week,” said Valenzuela.
Valenzuela said she would probably try and run her girls in their regular events this coming Saturday at Crane, which will be the final meet for Pecos before District 3-3A competition on April 14-15 at Fort Stockton.
Eagles break run drought in non-district win
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
Pecos Eagles coach Elias Payan is hoping a non-district win over the Kermit Yellowjackets on Friday night is what his team needed to get back on track for Tuesday night's game against the Lamesa Golden Tornadoes, though he said the team still has more work to do after their 10-2 win on Friday at home against Kermit.
“We're doing better, but we're still not where we need to be,” Payan said about the win, which ended a three-game losing streak for Pecos during which they managed only five hits.
Miguel Estrada's first home run of the season on the first pitch of the fourth inning, followed by a four-run fifth inning for the Eagles, turned a 2-1 lead into a 9-1 advantage. Most of Pecos' runs came as the result of Kermit mistakes, while pitchers Robert Nunez, Isaiah Rayos and Eddie Vela were able to hold Kermit to just single runs in the first and sixth innings of the game.
“One thing I was pleased about was we weren't chasing any balls in the dirt. We were more selective, which was a good sign going in against Lamesa,” said Payan, whose team had lost three straight District 3-3A games after opening up with wins over Fort Stockton and Monahans.
Kermit used a bad pickoff throw by catcher Chris Garnto in the top of the first inning to take a 1-0 lead, after Hunter Hardaway opened the game with a double off Nunez. But the Eagles would score twice in their half of the first, as Jose Chavez reached on a error by shortstop Randy Castillo and then scored on an error by Cooter Green on a Vela grounder, and he then came home on a two-out single by Garnto off starter Lane Hill.
Estrada sliced his home run down the left field line off Hill to start the fourth inning, and Rayos would then reach on another Castillo error and later score on a wild pitch for a 4-1 lead. In the fifth Josh Anchondo opened the game with a single and scored on a double steal following a walk to Nunez, as catcher Santos Saucedo's throw to third base went into left field.
Hill would leave the game after hitting Estrada and Javier Mendoza around another error by Green, on a Kenny Rayos grounder, that made it 7-2. Green came on to pitch and got Chavez to line out, but Isaiah Rayos' grounder then went through Castillo's legs for a two-run error and an 9-1 lead.
On the mound, Nunez worked three innings and only had a little trouble after the unearned run in the first, while Rayos shut out Kermit in his two innings of work, leaving the bases loaded in the fifth after running into some control problems. Vela also stranded three on the bases in the seventh to end the game following two walks and an infield hit, after a walk and a two-out single by Hardaway in the sixth gave the Jackets' their other run.
Rayos' mound work was his first since the Snyder Tournament, while Nunez got credit for the win and improved to 1-2 on the season. “We just worked on our pitchers and tried to pitch some people that hadn't gotten a chance recently,” said Payan.
Lamesa comes into Tuesday's game with an 0-5 district record, after falling to Presidio on Friday. Anchondo started last Tuesday's 4-2 loss at Presidio, but Payan said the junior was still hurting after that game, and as a result, “I'll probably start Eddie and try and get a win at home, and if we need to my other people will do it. That way it gives Josh time to heal up so he can pitch against Stockton.” The Eagles open the second half of their District 3-3A schedule at Fort Stockton this Friday.
Unfocused Eagles ripped by Tornadoes
Playing games before the game Friday left the chances of the Pecos Eagles softball team playing any playoff games looking a lot slimmer, as the Eagles reached the halfway point of the District 3-3A schedule with a disheartening 11-5 home field loss to the Lamesa Golden Tornadoes.
Lamesa, who the Eagles had beaten at home to open district play by an 11-1 score, both out-hit and out-fielded Pecos, and used Ali Borrego's three-run home run in the fourth inning off pitcher Amalie Herrera to take the lead to stay, after the Eagles had rallied from a 2-0 deficit to grab a 3-2 lead.
“We probably took them for granted,” said Eagles' coach Tammy Walls, who added that her team spent much of the pre-game focusing on missing uniforms instead of on the Tornadoes.
“They came ready to play and we didn't,” Walls said. “Their pitcher (Mayda Dimas) pitched a good game, but we made it easy on her.”
Dimas had Pecos either popping up or striking out for most of the game, while the Tornadoes got to Herrera in the fifth and sixth innings, with a series of defensive mistakes also helping Lamesa in the early going.
Catcher Jessica Flores tried to tag JoAnn Olivera with two outs and the bases loaded in the second while fielding a low throw from third baseman Savannah Ewing instead of stepping on home plate, and was unable to handle the ball as Oliver scored for a 1-0 Lamesa lead. In the third, Ewing threw away Chastity Marmolejo's grounder, and she scored when Vanessa Valeriano couldn't hold onto Krystal Gonzales' pop up behind second base with two away.
The Eagles used an error by shortstop Sam Johnson in the third to briefly gain the lead. It came on a Jenny Palomino grounder following a one-out single by Ewing, and Herrera followed with a two-run double to left-center field. She then scored on a Danielle Garcia single, but she would later be throw out at home trying to score on a grounder by Valeriano.
Pecos kept the lead in the fourth inning when Cassandra Terrazas threw out Dimas at home trying to score on a single by Jaci Bara. But the Eagles couldn't do anything in the fifth when Borrego crashed her home run over the fence in center field, after Marmolejo singled and Olivera walked to lead off the inning.
Pecos would then run themselves out of a chance to score in their half of the fifth, and Lamesa then put the game away by scoring six more times in the sixth inning.
Palomino was thrown out trying to steal on a passed ball third strike to Herrera, after opening the inning with a single. That hurt Pecos, as Florez and Garcia then followed with singles, but Dimas was able to get Valeriano to pop to Johnson at shortstop, ending the inning.
Bara would triple past a diving Terrazas down the right field line to open the sixth inning, and scored on a single by Marmolejo. Olivera then singled off Ewing's glove at third base and one out later Gonzales singled home Marmolejo to make it an 8-3 game. Olivera scored on an Ana Gonzales ground out after a walk to Johnson, and the final two runs came in on a single by Dimas down the third base line.
Up by eight, Lamesa's defense came to Dimas' aid in the sixth and seventh innings, as Bara made a diving catch of a Palomino fly ball with two outs and two on in the sixth, and Vanessa Alvarado would run into foul territory to snare a line drive by Florez in the seventh, after a leadoff single by Herrera. Pecos would later score two runs in the seventh on a hit by Hillery Hinojos and a bases-loaded walk to Terrazas, but Dimas then got Ewing to ground to second base, ending the game.
“We just didn't do the things we needed to do to be successful,” Walls said about the loss to the Tors, who improved to 2-5 in district play with Friday's victory.
The Eagles are still at 3-3 in district at the halfway point, but due to a schedule change they have yet to face first-place Greenwood. They'll do that this Saturday on the Rangerettes' home field, after trips to Seminole on Tuesday and Fort Stockton on Friday.
“We pretty much have to win all our games now to make the playoffs,” Walls said. Pecos has only two more home games this season, against Greenwood and Presidio, but are 2-0 so far away from home, while Friday's loss dropped them to 1-3 in district playing on their own field.
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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