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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Monday, August 27, 2001
Eagles receive pre-district scare from Wildcats
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
The start of District 2-4A volleyball play for the Pecos Eagles is
still three weeks off, but the Eagles got a wake-up call Saturday evening
from the Fabens Wildcats on how tough a sixth straight trip to the
playoffs for Pecos will be this season.
After opening with a lifeless 15-3 loss to Pecos, the Wildcats turned
things around after that, dominating the Eagles to win the final two games
by 15-4, 15-4 scores to capture third place in the Cantaloupe Classic Volleyball
Tournament. That came after Pecos had lost in the tournament semifinals to
Seminole, 15-4, 15-7, and followed a morning 15-13, 15-12 win over Van Horn.
Seminole would go on to defeat El Paso Riverside to win the tournament,
15-3, 4-15, 15-6, and the Maidens were just able to out-hit the Eagles in
their semifinal win. But against Fabens, the Eagles just stopped hitting
after the first game, as they allowed Fabens to control the tempo to the
point that coach Becky Granado called a double time-out in the second game
to try and get things straightened out, to no avail.
"It's the same old thing. We have too many followers out there and not
any leaders and that's what's tough. Our kids just don't talk to each other,"
Granado said, which led in the final two games to Pecos players running into
each other several times trying for free balls, which either ended up in
points for Fabens or in bad chances on offense for the Eagles.
"We go try and cover somebody else's spot, and sometimes we don't want
to cover our own spot. There's just a lack of communication. We don't want
to communicate at all," Granado said.
While the Eagles figure to be at a height disadvantage in most of their
matches this season, that wasn't the case in either the win over Van Horn
or the losses to Seminole and Fabens. In their morning match, the Eagles
jumped out to a 10-5 lead in the opening game, then held off Van Horn after
the visiting Eagles cut that margin to 14-13. In the second game, Pecos scored
eight straight points with Stephanie Herrera serving to wipe out an 8-3 deficit,
then had to rally again at the finish after Van Horn regained a 12-11 lead.
Against Seminole, the Eagles led only once, at 2-1 in the second game,
and were done in by the better jumping ability of both tournament MVP Sarah
Hill and the Maidens' 5-foot-5 outside hitter B.J. Williams, who was selected
as Outstanding Hitter overall for the tournament.
Another shorter hitter, Fabens' Jessica Anutnez, also out-jumped the Eagles'
blockers during the final two games of their match hitting from the outside.
Pecos also had problems blocking Stacy Macias after doing a good job at the
net in the opening game, when the Wildcats had problems at the outset handling
Kathy Maldonado's serves and fell behind 11-0.
The Eagles led the second game, 3-2 when a bad set by Herrera and a spike
by Macias got Fabens rolling on a 10-0 run that gave them a 12-3 lead. The
only point the Eagles managed to score the rest of the way was off an ace
serve by Becca Wein, before Fabens went on another 10 point run, scoring
the final three points of Game 2 and jumping out to a 7-0 lead in Game 3.
That lead would grow to 11-1 before Pecos scored three straight points,
most of that coming when the Wildcats ran into serving problems. But the
Eagles had their own problems getting serves over the net, and three mistakes
by Pecos and an Antunez kill finished the match off for Fabens.
"There again we don't know how to take advantage of somebody else's mistakes,"
Granado said. "We're going to have to play a better game, or we're not going
to score a single point in Seminole," where Pecos will play the Maidens again,
along with Amarillo Caprock and Hereford in pool round play this coming Friday.
After sweeping El Paso Parkland in their pool round in Pecos on Friday
morning, the Eagles had an up-and-down afternoon while going 6-2 overall
in pool games. They blew a 14-7 lead against Marfa and ended up with a 14-15,
15-6 split with the Shorthorns, then later rallied from a 13-6 deficit to
Kermit to sweep the Yellowjackets, 15-13, 15-12, and in-between split with
Fort Hancock, 9-15, 15-8.
Before going to Seminole, the Eagles will take their 3-10 record to Alpine
on Tuesday, to face the Bucks and Odessa High Broncos in a pair of matches.
Pecos opened the season with losses to OHS and Alpine in Odessa.
Pecos drops season-opening tennis matches
The top seeds in the lineups held their own, but the Pecos Eagles' tennis
team had problems winning matches at the lower seeds on Saturday, and dropped
their season opening matches to the Fort Stockton Panthers and El Paso Burges
Mustangs.
Burges swept the lower seeds to defeat Pecos by a 16-5 final score, while
Fort Stockton won all but one of the lower seeds in a 15-6 victory over the
Eagles in their fall season tennis openers.
"Our bottom seeded players weren't there, so I had to move up my JV up.
That's why we didn't do very well," said Mike Ortiz, who was making his debut
as the Eagles' varsity tennis coach. "When I get all my people back in the
right places, we'll do better."
"I'm not disappointed with the way our kids played, even the JV kids.
I was happy with the way they performed," he added.
No 1 seed on the boys' side Trent Graham split his four matches, winning
his singles match against Burges while teaming with Jay Dannelley to win
in doubles play against Fort Stockton. Dannelly, the No. 2 seed for the boys,
won both his matches against the Panthers while losing both to the Mustangs.
On the girls' side, No. 1 seed Brenda Fuentes won her singles and doubles
matches against Burges, teaming with Kristina Dominguez for the doubles win,
while losing twice against the Panthers. No. 2 seed in singles, Natalia Ornelas,
won her matches against Fort Stockton and Burges, while she and Elizabeth
Carreron split their doubles matches, beating the Prowlers while falling
to the Mustangs.
The girls' other win against Fort Stockton came from No. 6 seed Whitney
Lamb, while in mixed doubles, Joel Sotelo and Beatrace Villarreal also picked
up a three-set victory.
Fuentes and Dominguez' doubles win was also in three sets, as was the
victory by Graham and Dannelley, while six other matches the Eagles lost
in split sets.
The Eagles will have this coming week and the Labor Day weekend off,
and will play their next matches on Sept. 7-8, at the Americus High School
Tournament in El Paso.
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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