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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
April 30, 2001
Defensive, offensive effort helps get Eagles 2-4A title
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
PECOS, April 30, 2001 - The first pitch of the game from Barney Rodriguez
was lined into center field for a base hit by Angel Muela. The second pitch
was lined into left field for a hit by Rigo Esparza.
But the San Elizario Eagles not only didn't get either runner past second
base, neither Muela or Esparza even got to second, as a more focused Pecos
Eagle team turned up the effort on defense and dominated the host Eagles
on Friday, winning the District 2-4A baseball title by a 12-1 score in
a game called after six-innings by the 10-run rule.
Pecos already had a 2-0 lead off starter Bo Solis when the Eagles defense
went to work. Muela's single was fielded by Rigo Ramirez, who threw the
ball to second baseman Alex Garcia, who then fired the ball to catcher
Mason Abila, who was trailing behind Muela. He put the tag on Muela, who
slipped off first base as he came back after rounding the bag and was called
out.
Esparza followed with his single, and three pitches later attempted
to go to second when a Rodriguez pitch bounced away from Abila. But the
catcher recovered in time and fire to Garcia, who tagged Esparza out, and
Rodriguez then caught Solis looking with a third strike to retire the side.
The Eagles then pushed across three more runs in the top of the second
inning.
"That was the turning point in the game," said Eagles' coach Bubba Williams.
"Their first man comes up and gets a hit and Mason comes up from behind
and gets an out, and then Mason's able to get a bad ball and recover and
throw him out, and their morale went from way up to way down and ours when
from there to there."
A lack of intensity in the early innings has hurt the Eagles in district
- they finished with a 9-1 record, but were either trailing or tied in
seven of those games, often thanks to unearned runs. On Friday, the Eagles
played errorless ball, and outside of a couple of wild pitches by Rodriguez,
never gave San Elizario any scoring chances.
San Eli, meanwhile, gave Pecos an unearned run in the first, after Richard
Rodriguez sent Solis' third pitch of the game to the center field fence
for a triple. Abila then beat out an infield bouncer for a hit, scoring
Rodriguez, and moved to second and third on a bad pickoff throw by Solis
and a passed ball by catcher Angel Morales. He then scored on Barney Rodriguez'
ground out.
In the second, David Elkins walked and scored after hits by Pifi Montoya
and Ramirez, with Ramirez moving up to second base on the throw home. That
allowed him to score on Richard Rodriguez' single to right field, giving
Pecos a 5-0 lead.
Pecos made it 6-0 in the third and chased Solis from the mound after
a walk to Angel Villalobos and Montoya's RBI double to right-center. Jaime
Reyes came on and got out of trouble, then held Pecos scoreless in the
fourth, while the host Eagles got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the
fourth off Barney Rodriguez.
Solis reached on an infield hit, and after moving up on a wild pitch
scored on Tony Perez' RBI single to center before Rodriguez got Morales
on a fielder's choice grounder to retire the side. Perez' hit was the last
of five surrendered on the afternoon by Rodriguez, who survived a few control
problems in the later innings to raise his record to 7-0 on the season.
Meanwhile, Pecos got the run back in their next at-bat, when Elkins
walked and later scored on a single by Ramirez, then ended things by scoring
five times in the top of the sixth inning.
Reyes, who had balked Elkins to third base in the fifth inning, balked
again in the sixth after walking Garcia and giving up a hit to Abila to
start things off. Barney Rodriguez then singled Garcia home, and after
Villalobos was intentionally walked to load the bases, Elkins managed to
come up with a two RBI ground out to first base, when first baseman David
Almanzar missed the tag, then came bag and just got Elkins at first base
after he fell down while dodging the tag. With both runners on the ground,
Abila scored and then courtesy runner Oscar Parada scored over the protests
of Morales, who claimed - very loudly - he blocked the plate, though he
was unable to hold onto the ball.
Up 10-1, the Eagles then got the runs they needed to end the game under
the 10-run rule, as Montoya blooped a single over the drawn-in infield
to score Villalobos, and Richard Rodriguez then scored pinch-runner Ruvel
Carrasco with a sacrifice fly.
"We were focused from the start, and I told them we would 10-run-rule
them right from the start and that's what we did," Williams said. "Richard
starts us off with a triple, Pifi had two base hits, Rigo had a couple
of hits and Barney came through and got the outs for us."
Winning the district title also allows the Eagles to get a week off
before beginning the Class 4A playoffs. They'll face the winner of this
weekend's Canyon-Big Spring series sometime around May 11 in the area round
of the playoffs. San Elizario, meanwhile, will host El Paso Ysleta in the
bi-district round of the playoffs, while the only team Pecos lost to in
district this season, Fabens, will take on El Paso Burges in the other
bi-district series.
Williams said that the Eagles would play one playoff practice game in
Pecos this coming Thursday, at 7 p.m. against Seminole.
Pecos fails to advance at regional
PECOS, April 30, 2001 - The Region I-4A track meet was as tough as expected
for the Pecos Eagles track teams over the weekend. The Eagles failed to
score a point and qualified only one person for the finals during the two-day
meet at Angelo State University.
Freshman Stephanie Herrera earned a spot in the finals of the girls'
shot put on Friday and ended up eighth overall, for the best performance
for any Pecos competitor at the I-4A meet.
"Stephanie went out and threw her personal best," said Eagles' coach
Lily Talamantez, as Herrera had a 107-foot throw, four feet better than
her winning mark at the District 2-4A meet in Canutillo three weeks ago.
That was the girls' lone gold medal effort at district, with the Eagles'
other regional qualifiers coming as district runners-up.
"The sprint (400 meter relay) team ran their best time, a 51.0, and
I still think they could have done a lot better if they had prepared more,"
Talamantez said. "With all the other things going on, it was hard to get
everyone to practice at once."
Despite cutting their time, the 400-meter team finished at the back
of the pack at the regional meet, and the 800 meter relay team along with
800 meter runner Michelle Saenz and 3200 meter runner Mari Martinez also
failed to crack the Top 12 at the meet.
"We have everybody coming back, and hopefully, they'll work a little
harder next year. I know our freshmen after the meet were saying they were
going to work harder and run more next year to get better," Talamantez
said.
Pecos had only one regional qualifier on the boys' side in senior Daniel
Terrazas, who failed to reach Saturday's finals, ending up 10th overall,
coach Jerry Parent said.
"He ran a 50.9, and he was out of the finals by about four-tenths of
a second," Parent said. "He got really tight the last 50 meters."
Terrazas won the 400 meters at district with a 50.3 time, which would
have been sixth best in Saturday's finals. "There were just too many 49s
and 48s," said Parent.
No District 2-4A competitor earned a state berth, but two, Fabens' Ricky
Ontiveros and Clint's D.J. Shephard, earned third place medals, Ontiveros
in the 3200 meter run and Shephard in the 200-meter dash.
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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