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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Friday, December 9, 2005
Youth basketball sign-ups continue
The Reeves County Community Sports and Recreation Department is enrolling boys and girls in the winter pee-wee basketball program through the end of this month.
The league is open to children between 5 years old and those currently in sixth grade, with a registration deadline of Dec. 16 for participating in the pre-season fundamentals program, and Dec. 30 for those just participating in league play.
Parents can pick up enrollment forms at the RCCRD office in the old Pecos High School gym during office hours, from 4 to 9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, from 4 to 6 p.m. on Fridays and from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. Registration fee is $10 per player, and returned forms must have both parents’ signatures and be accompanied by a birth certificate.
For further information, call the RCCRD office at 447-9776.
Pecos goes hunting first win in Sandhills field
The Pecos Eagles were looking to improve on their shooting this weekend, and will be in need of working hard on their defense as well, as they opened up the 16-team Monahans Sandhills Tournament Thursday morning against the El Paso Parkland Matadors.
The 0-7 Eagles played Parkland at 8:30 a.m. at the Larned Special Events Center in the first of eight opening round games. The winner will play at the Center at 1 p.m. on Friday against either Amarillo Caprock or El Paso Burges, while the losers will face each other at that same time, at the Monahans High School gym.
The Eagles were kept winless on the season Monday afternoon in Midland, when they were beaten by the Midland Christian Mustangs, 69-54.
“We were 3-for-17 in free throws and had 23 turnovers,” said Eagles’ coach Art Wellborn. “So many times we had 2-on-1 breaks and turned the ball over. For some reason we just can’t finish.”
Monday’s game was the first of the season in which the Eagles had their full squad available, but Wellborn said point guard Josh Anchondo didn’t spend much time on the court.
“Josh got into foul trouble and then fouled out. He only had six points,” Wellborn said.
Miguel Estrada led the Eagles with 13 points, while Lupito Bustamantes had 10. The Eagles were in the game until the third quarter, trailing 19-13 after one period and 36-26 at the half, before the Mustangs outscored Pecos in the third period, 17-9, to put the game away.
“We didn’t make our free throws and they started building a lead, and their 3-point shooters got more relaxed because it wasn’t a close game,” said Wellborn. Midland’s Darby O’Donnell led all scorers with 25 points for Midland Christian, including five 3-point shots.
The Mustangs are also in Pecos’ half of the bracket at Monahans, opening Thursday afternoon against Lubbock Estacado. Denver City faces Seminole in the other game in that bracket, while the late afternoon and evening games in the other half of the bracket match El Paso Riverside against Fort Stockton, Lubbock High and El Paso High, Big Spring against Grape Creek and the host Loboes against Bovina.
Meanwhile, Pecos’ junior varsity and freshmen teams were hosting their own tournament this weekend at the Pecos High School gym. The ninth graders faced Odessa Nimitz in their opener on Thursday at 3 p.m., while the JV’s first game was set for 7:30 p.m., against Midland Greenwood.
Swimmers take break from break in Seminole
The Pecos Eagle swim team will be competing in their only meet over a six week period this Saturday, when they travel to Seminole to face most of their District 3-4A rivals along with schools from the Panhandle, El Paso and New Mexico.
The Eagles have been off since the weekend before Thanksgiving, when the boys placed second and the girls sixth at the Monahans Invitational. District rivals Andrews, Big Spring, Fort Stockton and Monahans, along with Hobbs, N.M., will again face the Eagles this Saturday, while El Paso Hanks, Amarillo Caprock, Carlsbad and Artesia will be the other schools entered, along with the host Indians.
The boys placed second despite being shorthanded at the start of the Monahans meet, with freshman Josh Elliott attending a 4-H event. For Saturday, coach Terri Morse said Elliott would be there, as would senior Matt Elliott, who hasn’t competed since injuring his knee in Pecos’ Oct. 21 football game against Greenwood.
“Matt should swim this week for the first time since his injury,” Morse said. “I entered him with a little slower times, so he won’t feel pressured coming back from his injury.”
The senior, who won the regionals in the 100 yard butterfly and placed second in the 200 freestyle last February, will swim the 100 free and the 200 free this weekend, along with competing as part of the ‘B’ 400 meter freestyle relay. He’s seeded eighth in the 200 free and 11th in the 100 free.
With Elliott in the 100 free, Kyle Winkles, who won that race at Monahans, will move over to the 50 free on Saturday. He’s seeded second there, and first in his other regular event, the 100-yard backstroke. Matthew Florez is Pecos’ highest seed in the 100 free going into the meet, as No. 4, while Matt Oglesby is seeded first in the 200 medley and the 100-yard butterfly, and the Eagles’ 400 freestyle ‘A’ relay is seeded first.
The 200 medley relay team is seeded second behind Carlsbad, and the 200 freestyle relay team goes into the meet seeded fifth.
Pecos’ girls didn’t have a first place finish at Monahans but have two swimmers seeded first in their events at Seminole. Lindsey Shaw has the best time going into the 200 medely, while Ashley Mendoza is seeded first in the 500-yard freestyle.
After Saturday’s meet, Pecos is off for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays until January 7, when they travel to the Fort Stockton Invitational.
Second scoring drought dooms Eagles
The Pecos Eagles were able to survive a first quarter against the Alpine Bucks when they scored very few points. But they couldn’t survive a fourth quarter when it took Pecos almost the entire period to score any.
The Eagles didn’t make a basket in the first period Monday evening at the Pecos High School gym, but came out of the quarter trailing Alpine by only a 4-3 score. And they were down by just a 21-19 margin entering the final period, but couldn’t manage a point until Claire Weinacht hit a lay-up with 46.6 seconds to play.
By that time, the Bucks had added 13 more points to their lead, as part of a 18-0 run that turned what had been a 19-16 Pecos lead midway through the third period into a 34-19 deficit and an eventual 36-23 Alpine victory.
“I was proud of most of the effort, especially on defense, but there are still times when we relax,” said Eagles’ coach Lisa Lowery, whose team begins play Friday morning against Lubbock High in the Monahans Sandhills Tournament.
“Shooting is still our Achilles heel,” Lowery said, as it took the Eagles 8 1/2 minutes to get a field goal, when Chantell Mazone put in a missed foul shot by Jasmine Rayos just over 30 seconds into the start of the second quarter.
Pecos had led at the start of the game, 1-0 on a Rayos foul shot, but could manage just two more free throws, by Adriana Armendariz, in the period. Alpine got lay-ups from Daniella Valenzuela and Brittany Simples to take a 4-1 lead at one point, but ran into trouble getting their shots off due to turnovers.
The Eagles led by a point a couple of times in the second period, but a lay-up by Kyla Urias late in the quarter allowed the Bucks to take a 14-13 lead at halftime. A Simples basket opened the third quarter, but jumpers by Armendariz and Rayos and a lay-up by Mazone gave Pecos what turned out to be their largest lead of the night.
Mazone’s basket also turned out to be the Eagles’ last point for about 10 minutes. Alpine tied the game late in the third period on a Casey Aguilar lay-up and a Bianca Ruiz, and a Carriz Mendoza lay-up then put Alpine up by two. Pecos would have a chance to tie the game as the final period opened, but Armendariz missed two foul shots and Mendoza would then hit a 3-pointer for a 24-19 lead. She would add another jumper and Valenzuela would put in two more lay-ups before Weinacht’s basket finally got Pecos on the board in the final period.
Armendariz was the only Pecos player in double figures, with 11 points, while Valenzuela led all scorers with 13. The loss left Pecos with a 2-6 record going into their 11:30 a.m. game on Friday against Lubbock High at the Sandhills Tournament.
The Eagles will play twice on Friday, with the second game set for 8:30 p.m. against either the host Loboes or Jal, N.M. The winners of the early games will play their semifinal game at the Larned Special Events Center, while the losers of the early games will meet at the Monahans High School gym.
Denver City faces El Paso Riverside and Big Spring takes on Monahans’ ‘B’ team in the other tournament openers. Play continues with the seventh place game at 11:45 a.m. on Saturday, while the consolation third place and title games follow at 1:30, 3:15 and 6:45 p.m. in the Special Events Center.
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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