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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Tuesday, February 5, 2002
Pecos netters down Craine, battling rain
The Pecos Eagles tennis team picked up their second win of the 2002 spring
season on Saturday, with a victory over the Crane Golden Cranes.
However, picking up their third win today may be a problem, as rain
threatens the Eagles' matches in Monahans against the Loboes while also
pushing back the completion date for the Eagles' new tennis courts.
Pecos upped their spring record to 2-0-1 with a 12-3 win in Crane on
Saturday, coach Mike Ortiz said. Pecos swept all of the boys matches against
the shorthanded Cranes' squad, while the Eagles won five of the eight girls
matches against the Golden Cranes despite being short a few players themselves.
"They only had three boys," said Ortiz, which forced the Cranes' top
two players to handle both doubles matches as well as their own singles
contest, while their No. 3 singles player ended up playing at No. 4 and
No. 5 singles as well.
"The girls were my problem. All I had was my No. 3 girl (Kristina Dominguez),
and after that my No. 7-8 girls and my two freshmen players," said Ortiz.
Dominguez won a pair of singles matches, while the Cranes won both of the
doubles matches against the Eagles' other players.
"It was good competition. It was just that my freshmen girls were really
nervous," said Ortiz on Monday, adding that he hoped to have more of his
regular players out for today's match against Monahans.
However, the rains that have been in the area for the past three days
may force postponement of the match with the Loboes, who the Eagles beat
in Monahans on Jan. 26, after tying Brownfield in their season opener.
Pecos' next matches after today are scheduled for Feb. 15-16, when they
host their own tournament at the Pecos High School tennis courts. Those
courts are currently in the final stage of a resurfacing project begun
in December and scheduled for completion this week. But the rains have
slowed the work down the past few days.
"This weather had pushed back the schedule for getting the tennis courts
ready," said Ortiz. "The earliest now they can be ready is next Monday,
and the tournament is next week. I've got to give the kids a chance to
practice on the courts."
Saturday's results are listed below:
Pecos (12) at Crane (3)
Boys Singles
Bobby Sotelo defeated Jossue Sauceda, 6-0, 6-1; Stephen Lamb defeated
Curtis Henderson, 6-0, 0-1; Jay Dannelley defeated Nick Ortiz, 6-0, 6-0;
Michael Orona defeated Ortiz, 6-1, 6-0; Orlando Mendoza defeated Ortiz,
6-0, 6-0.
Girls Singles
Kristina Dominguez defeated Tera Tipton, 6-4, 6-4; Chantel Orona defeated
Vanessa Marinelareno, 6-1, 6-0; Whitney Lamb defeated Andrea Valdez, 6-3,
6-3; Catherine Garcia lost to Toyah Beverly, 6-1, 6-2; Sara Natividad defeated
Boralia Rodriguez, 6-4, 6-0; Dominguez defeated Valdez, 6-3, 6-2.
Boys Doubles
Sotelo and Dannelley defeated Sauceda and Henderson, 6-1, 6-0; Orona
and Sotelo defeated Sauceda and Henderson, 6-2, 6-1.
Girls Doubles
Orona and Lamb lost to Tipton and Callahan, 7-5, 6-3; Garcia and Natividad
lost to Beverly and Rodriguez, 6-1, 7-6 (7-4).
Pecos girls close out season against San Elizario tonight
The 2001-2002 basketball season comes to an end tonight for the Pecos Eagle
girls' team, while the boys play their next-to-last home game of the season
tonight, when both squads host San Elizario in varsity, junior varsity
and freshman games.
The girls will try one last time to get their first district win when
they host San Eli starting at 6 p.m., followed by the boys' varsity game
at 7:30 p.m. The Eagles' freshmen and JV teams will play at 4:30 p.m. in
both gyms, while the JV boys and ninth grade girls will play in the old
gym at 6 and 7:30 p.m.
Pecos and San Elizario's positions are almost completely reversed from
a year ago. Last season, the Eagles needed a win in order to earn a tie
for the third and final District 2-4A playoff berth, but missed a series
of lay-ups and lost at home to San Eli, 50-30.
This season, it's the visiting Eagles who need a victory to earn at
least a tie for the third and final playoff berth, after falling into a
tie for third place on Friday with El Paso Mountain View thanks to their
44-32 loss to first place Canutillo. Valerie Soto had 12 points to lead
San Eli, which is 5-4 in district play. Soto scored 26 points last month,
when her team beat the Eagles at home, 52-38.
Mountain View earned their tie for third by beating Pecos, 72-31, leaving
the Eagles with an 0-9 district mark. Jessica Martinez led the Eagles with
12 points, but the Lobos were able to use their full-court press in the
first half to come up with a series of turnovers for points.
Pecos' boys also lost to Mountain View on Friday, getting just one field
goal in the first 13½ minutes of the second half of their 51-38
loss to the Lobos. It left Pecos with a 1-6 district record.
"If we play on Tuesday the way we played in the second half San Eli
will blow us away," said Eagles' coach Tino Acosta, whose team was trying
to win their first back-to-back-district games in seven years.
The Eagles ended their long 2-4A losing streak a week ago with a 58-53
win over Canutillo. The Golden Eagles then bounced back on Friday and beat
San Eli, 40-39 to create a three-way tie for second place between those
two teams and Clint, whom the Eagles will play this Friday. Last month,
San Eli defeated Pecos by a 53-26 score on their home court, after beating
the Eagles earlier this season in a non-district game at Andrews.
Eagles set grid schedule for new 3A district
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
The bi-annual realignment announced Monday by the University Interscholastic
League will create a change in one sport for the Pecos Eagles, while the
Eagles' 2002 varsity football schedule is pretty much set one day after
Pecos was dropped from Class 4A into Class 3A under the new UIL plan
The Eagles were moved from the El Paso-based Class 4A district they've
been a part of for the past four seasons into District 4-3A, with former
4A district rivals Fort Stockton and Monahans, along with Kermit, Presidio
and Midland Greenwood.
Pecos Eagles athletic director Bubba Williams, along with superintendent
Don Love and head football coach Gary Grubbs went to the Region 18 Service
Center in Midland to pick up their realignment packets on Monday, and at
the same time set up their district football schedules for the next two
years and their first district meeting, later this month.
"The district will have a meeting on Feb. 22 at 9 a.m. in Monahans for
all head coaches," Williams said on Monday, at which time arrangements
for football and the other sports and extracurricular activities will be
made.
Even before then, the six district teams drew numbers to decide the
4-3A schedule for next fall. Grubbs said Pecos would open district with
an Oct. 11 game at Kermit, then will play their 2002 homecoming game on
Oct. 18 against the Presidio Blue Devils. That's followed by a trip to
Monahans on Oct. 25, and the Eagles' final two games will be against 2001
playoff qualifiers Fort Stockton, at home on Nov. 1, and at Greenwood on
Nov. 8.
Last year's District 4-3A champ, Alpine, along with the district's runner-up
team, Crane, both dropped down to Class 2A this season, but both are on
the Eagles' tentative pre-district schedule. Pecos will host the Bucks
in their 2002 season opener on Sept. 6, then face another Class 3A playoff
team from a year ago, Lamesa, on Sept. 13. That's followed by games against
Brownfield on Sept. 20, Crane on Sept. 27 and Lubbock High on Oct. 4.
Grubbs said the teams in pre-district are set, though the sites still
have to be finalized, and the Eagles are expecting to host Brownfield and
Lubbock High while traveling to Lamesa and Crane.
Aside from avoiding most of the trips through the mountains on winter
days like today, when ice and snow can be a problem at the higher elevations
between Pecos and El Paso, the changes will also allow the Eagles to schedule
more sub-varsity games against the Eagles' varsity opponents. In recent
years the Eagles have had to search for sub-varsity games in October and
November, while the varsity was facing Clint, Mountain View, Fabens, Canutillo
and San Elizario.
"We'll play everybody on the sub-varsity level except Lubbock High,"
Grubbs said about the freshman and junior varsity teams. "Alpine said they
may not have a freshman team and I don't think Presidio will have one,
but hopefully we'll be able to fill in with teams around there."
He said the junior high schedules would be "almost the same, except
we won't go on the long trips with the junior highs."
In addition on the varsity level, Williams said the Eagles probably
will have the largest enrollment among the District 3-4A schools, which
means they'll automatically go into the Division I football playoffs, if
they qualify for post-season football competition in either of the next
two years. Football is the only sport using the Division I and Division
II set-up; the other sports are set up the same way as in Class 4A, with
the district champion drawing a first round bye.
The other sport that will change for Pecos will be tennis. Class 4A
teams have played their team tennis season in the fall for the past decade
and their individual tournaments in the spring. In Class 3A, the Eagles
will go back to the previous arrangement, where both team and individual
tennis will be in the fall, though coach Mike Ortiz can still schedule
fall non-district dual meets against other schools.
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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 newsdesk@nwol.net
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Copyright 2002 by Pecos Enterprise
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