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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Greenwood routs Pecos, clinches 2nd place
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
Just doing the little things right can go a long way towards winning
a game.
The Midland Greenwood Rangerettes didn't have anywhere near the front
line advantage the Monahans Loboettes did a week ago when they came into
Pecos and routed the Eagles, but Greenwood did almost everything better than
the Eagles on Tuesday night and captured second place in the District 4-3A
standings with a 15-8, 15-6 victory.
The win was even more decisive than their 15-11, 15-12 win over the Eagles
three weeks earlier in Midland, as the Rangerettes did everything better
fundamentally than Pecos except for serving, and even that fell apart at
the end for the Eagles, who missed their last two serves after breaking Greenwood's
serves at match point.
"Everything fell apart. We don't have any heart, we don't have any want,
we don't have any desire," said Eagles' coach Becky Granado. "They just allowed
us to make our mistakes and we did."
Greenwood's front line hitters, especially Marlene Spain, outsmarted Pecos'
defense several times by dinking the ball over the front line blockers and
in front of Pecos' back line players. It was the same strategy the Rangerettes
used in their first victory, and one Granado said the Eagles contributed
to by not moving on defense.
"When we let four balls drop on four taps into the middle of the court,
our kids were not into the game," she said. "When you walk on defense there's
no way you're going to get to any hit ball or anything. You have to be ready
to move and react and you're going to go to the ball."
Pecos never led in the opener, as the Rangerettes opened up a 6-2 lead,
with two points coming off dinks by Spain and Jaymie Flowers and another
on a spike by Kim Smith. The Eagles would cut that margin to 7-5 thanks to
a couple of kills by Leslie Rodriguez and Jessica Martinez, but after a missed
kill by Martinez Greenwood would widen their lead to 11-5, off a pair of
bad passes by Pecos and two spikes by Spain off Martinez. The Eagles would
only get as close as four points the rest of the way.
In Game 2 the Eagles got their only lead, at 1-0, on a mishandled serve
reception by Flowers, but then scored five straight points off three mishandled
passes and two spikes into the net by Pecos. The lead would balloon to 11-3
as Pecos' problems continued, and after trading points for a few minutes,
Greenwood won on a spike by Spain off a Danielle Garcia block and a spike
into the net by Rodriguez.
"When you put yourselves in a hole and have to get out it's hard, and
that's what we did in the first game, and we came back and did it the second
game," Granado said. "We had girls out of rotation in the second game, but
the referees didn't call it to be nice, I guess."
The win allowed Greenwood to end their regular season with an 8-2 record
in district and 19-17 overall, earning the No. 2 seed in the bi-district
round of the Class 3A playoffs, Pecos closes out with a 6-4 record, 12-14
overall and the No. 3 seed in the playoffs, but both the Eagles and Rangerettes
will have to wait until later this week to find out who they'll play in the
first round, after Seminole tied Lamesa for second place in District 3-3A
on Tuesday with an 8-15, 17-15, 15-6 homecourt win.
Pecos will play the winner of the Seminole-Lamesa second place playoff
game, probably next Tuesday in the Midland-Odessa area. Granado said before
then, the Eagles might play a practice game against Fort Davis, which qualified
for the Class A state playoffs.
Greenwood also won Tuesday's freshman and junior varsity matches, taking
the ninth grade contest, 15-11, 15-6, and winning an extended JV game, 19-17,
14-16, 15-6.
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 2002 by Pecos Enterprise
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