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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Tuesday, October 24, 2000
Eagles hunt down Lions, bag district title
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
VAN HORN, Oct. 24, 2000 -- The Pecos Eagles were dominating when they had
to be and the Clint Lions were generous when they couldn't afford it Monday
night in Van Horn, and the combination meant a District 2-4A volleyball
title and a first round playoff bye for the Eagles.
In a one-game playoff for first place, the Eagles took control
early on in Game 1 and never let the Lions get their offense in gear, as
Pecos cruised to a 15-4 victory. In Game 2 the Eagles slacked off a little, but
the Lions committed a series of unforced errors that kept Pecos out of
trouble and sent them on to a 15-9 win and their second district championship
in three years.
"We were ready in Game 1. We talked about it before we got on
the bus about what we needed to do tonight, and they were very
relaxed and didn't feel any pressure," said Eagles' coach Becky Granado.
"We knew what we had to do, it was just a matter of doing it."
A rally midway through the opening game pretty much set
the tone for the match. Clint was already down 8-4 and but had scored
two straight points when the Eagles' back line got to three straight spikes
by the Lions, then finally broke serve on a spike into the net by
Michelle Tullius. Michelle Saenz then blocked Marissa Arnold for a point,
which started a 7-0 run by Pecos that finished out the game.
It was the third block for point in Game 1 for Pecos. Earlier,
D'Andra Ortega had blocked a dink attempt by
Janeth Sanchez and Philly Fobbs blocked a Tullius spike as
Pecos jumped out to an 8-2 lead.
"Michelle and D'Andra did a fantastic job blocking," said
Granado. "I knew if we started blocking them they would just start dinking the
ball over."
Meanwhile, Fobbs was outplaying Clint's Collanne Bramblett,
who struggled to get her game going throughout the match. Bramblett
had three straight bad spikes in Game 2 after Clint took an early 2-0 lead,
and only had one point on her own, off a block of Fobbs with Pecos ahead
14-8 at the time.
"They split up their big blockers (Bramblett and Tullius) and that
was to our advantage," said Granado, as Fobbs had a series of kills in
the opening game, and also came up with several in the early part of Game 2.
Later on, though, the senior ran into problems of her own, hitting the
ball out of bounds, which helped the Lions keep things close. "Philly just lost
her composure at the end, but it was good to see the other girls pick it up, so
we know we don't have to depend on her all the time," Granado said.
Clint was within 9-8 after a bad spike by Ortega when Kayln Lara
hit a ball that rolled down the length of the net and fell in to break
serve. Ashley Salcido followed with a dink for a point, and then three
unforced errors and a block of Tullius by Ortega got the Eagles to within match
point. Pecos missed a couple of chance to end the match, but outside
of Bramblett's block on Fobbs, the Lions never could mount a challenge the
rest of the way, due to their own mistakes.
"When we got close to 15 points you could see the pressure get to
them and they started making a lot of mental mistakes," Granado said.
A dink by Fobbs finally ended things, and sent the Eagles on to the
area round of the Class 4A playoffs Halloween night.
The Eagles improved to 27-8 and finish 9-2 in district, but won't
know their playoff opponent until this Saturday, but before then
Granado said Pecos may play a playoff practice game in Andrews against Denver
City. Clint fell to 16-12 and 8-3, and will host El Paso Bowie in their
bi-district playoff game on Saturday. It will be part of a doubleheader, with El
Paso Mountain View facing El Paso Burges in the other bi-district match-up.
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
Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.
Copyright 2000 by Pecos Enterprise
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