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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Tuesday, May 23, 2000
Eagles' Quiroz gets scholarship offer
PECOS, May 23, 2000 -- Pecos Eagle senior Katrina Quiroz has become the
first Eagle softball player to be offered a college scholarship, following
a tryout recently at Ranger College.
Eagles' coach Tammy Walls said she took Quiroz to Ranger last Friday
for the tryout, which resulted in the scholarship offer from coach Leigh
Devers.
"She hasn't signed the letter of intent yet, but it's been offered,"
said Walls. "She'll be going as a shortstop and catcher."
Quiroz has been a varsity starter in all three seasons the Eagles have
fielded a softball team. She played most of her games at catcher in 1998,
then moved to shortstop in 1999 and this past season, when Pecos captured
the District 2-4A title and advanced to the area round of the Class 4A
playoffs.
"They had two players who could play shortstop and catcher and the coach
lost one of them, so they really needed somebody who could play both positions,"
Walls said. Quiroz batted .545 this past season, as the Eagles finished
with a 14-6 record after an extra-inning loss in the area round of the
playoffs to Hereford.
Walls said Ranger placed second in the nation in NJCAA fast-pitch softball
in 1994, and were also national runners-up in the second season of competition,
in 1988.
Blazers blast Lakers to even series, 106-77
By BOB BAUM
AP Sports Writer
LOS ANGELES, May 23, 2000 - Shaq, Kobe and the rest of the Los Angeles
Lakers won 67 regular-season games to earn homecourt advantage throughout
the NBA playoffs.
The Portland Trail Blazers took it away with a 20-0 third-quarter run
that negated any reason for a Hack-a-Shaq repeat.
"I've never seen anything like that," the Lakers' Robert Horry said.
"You don't know what happened, where it came from."
With Rasheed Wallace on his best behavior, and at his best on the court,
the Blazers routed the Lakers 106-77 Monday night to even the best-of-seven
Western Conference finals 1-1. The series doesn't resume until Friday in
Portland.
"No one said it was going to be easy," Shaquille O'Neal said. "Now we've
got our hands full."
Wallace, thrown out of Game 1 for getting two technical fouls, had playoff
career highs of 29 points and 12 rebounds. A graceful, powerful 6-foot-11
handful around the basket, he also has range. He made three 3-pointers
in the decisive run.
"I think everybody realizes how much of a key he is to us," Portland's
Steve Smith said. "We've got to have him on the fver got closer than 18.
"Defensively, we did a lot of good things out there," Portland coach
Mike Dunleavy said. "We were aggressive, much more so than we were last
game."
Kobe Bryant was the only other Los Angeles player in double figures
with 12 points, but he was only 2-for-9 from the field.
The Lakers lost at home for the first time in eight playoff games and
the second time in 26 games since losing to the Blazers on Jan. 22. Los
Angeles is 43-6 at home.
Wallace, who drew his second technical in Game 1 for glaring at referee
Ron Garretson, said he had no special motivation Monday night.
"I'm just going out there and playing," Wallace said. "My preparation
for this game wasn't any different than Game 1."
Wallace had 11 points and five rebounds in the third quarter, when the
Blazers outscored Los Angeles 28-8, tying the Lakers' playoff low for that
quarter and just two short of the NBA record-low for a third quarter, set
by Atlanta against Boston on May 6, 1986.
"The first half was just awful and we were only down by three points,"
Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "We certainly could play a better second
half was my message to the team at halftime, and we went out and played
worse."
Scottie Pippen had 21 points and 11 rebounds for Portland. He scored
17 points in the first half as the Blazers took a tenuous 48-45 lead. Smith
scored 24 for the Blazers, who are 3-3 against Los Angeles this season
and the only team to win twice on the Lakers' court.
"My mindset was to attack," Pippen said, "establish that we weren't
going to be a jump-shooting team."
The Lakers made just two of 15 shots in the third quarter and were outrebounded
14-5, even though O'Neal played the entire 12 minutes. Bryant said it was
the best defense, and the worst quarter, the Lakers experienced all season.
Brian Shaw's 3-pointer cut Portland's lead to 56-51 with six minutes
left in the third, but it would be the Lakers' last field goal of the quarter.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 915-445-5475, FAX 915-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
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Copyright 2000 by Pecos Enterprise
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