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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Friday, March 12, 2004
Rain cancels W.T. Relays’ opening day
West Texas Relays officials will be hoping for better weather on Saturday, after rains forced cancellation of the opening day of the Odessa track meet scheduled for this afternoon.
Pecos’ boys were among a number of West Texas Class 3A teams and Class 5A junior varsity squads scheduled to participate in Division I of the two-day meet, which will now take place all day on Saturday, with timed running finals at Ratliff Stadium.
Field events will start at 9 a.m., while the running finals will begin later Saturday morning and continue throughout the afternoon.
Pecos’ boys have opened the season with two straight second place finishes, to Andrews at the Comanche Relays two weeks ago, and last Saturday to Monahans at the West of the Pecos Relays. Monahans will be in the field at Odessa, along with district rival Kermit and future district opponents Seminole and Lamesa. Abilene Wylie, Denver City, Muleshoe and Snyder are the other Class 3A teams entered in the Division I field.
Pecos picked up five gold medals in each of their first two meets, with three coming in each from Rashad Terry, in the high jump, 1000 and 200 meter dashes. Terry’s winning time in the 200 a week ago in Pecos of 21.76 seconds would give him a shot at the Division I record at the West Texas relays, set just two year’s ago by Wylie’s John Lampert.
Isaiah Juarez in the 3200 meter run and John Parent in the 300 meter hurdles were Pecos’ other first place finishers last week. Parent had taken first in the discus in the Comanche Relays, while he and Terry were part of the 800-meter relay team that won in Fort Stockton. Head coach Jerry Parent changed up his relays last week to field three squads, and the Eagles placed second to Monahans in each of the three relay races.
Pecos’ girls’ track team is off this week. Both the girls and boys will be in action next weekend, at the Sandhills Relays in Monahans.
Eagles endure bad start to Midland tournament
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
After appearing to take a step forward on Monday in their victory at San Angelo Lake View, the Pecos Eagles baseball team took a step back Thursday afternoon, in the opening round of the West Texas March Classic in Midland.
The Eagles, 7-2 winners against San Angelo, were no-hit by Brownfield pitcher Tyree Wilkes for 3 1/3 innings, which was actually the least of the Eagles’ problems against the Cubs. Starter Edward Valencia allowed the first five Brownfield batters to reach base, and the Eagle pitchers wound up walking a dozen Cub batters, which combined wit four Pecos errors resulted in a five-inning, 11-1 loss in the opening round of the tournament.
The 3-8 Eagles were scheduled to take on the Seminole Indians in a 1 p.m. game today at Midland High School. A win would put them into a 5:30 p.m. consolation semifinal contest, while a loss would drop Pecos into the tournament’s 11th place contest, at 9 a.m. on Saturday.
“We just didn’t come to play ball,” said Eagles’ coach Elias Payan. “We were nonchalant and lackadaisical out there. We couldn’t throw the ball, we couldn’t catch the ball. We were giving them six outs an inning, and you’re not going to win any games doing that.”
Even in good seasons, Christensen Stadium has been something of a house of horrors for the Eagles in the West Texas March Classic, and Thursday was no exception. Andrew Cruz took Valencia’s first pitch of the game back up the middle for the first of his three hits on the afternoon, and then Wilkins reached on an infield hit up the third base line that appeared to be a foul ball off his foot.
Valencia then walked J.J. Jobe and Josh Hope to force in a run, and after hitting Daniel Garcia in the head wit a 1-2 pitch was replaced by Eddie Vela on the mound. He got Mason Becker too ground to Jose Reyes at shortstop, but second baseman Isaiah Rayos dropped Reyes’ throw, and Garcia was safe. Rayos did hold onto Reyes’ next throw, forcing Becker on a Paul Cardenas grounder, and Josh Anchondo threw out Garcia at home on a Josh Gonzales grounder to third before Vela walked Jon Green and then got Cruz to hit into a fielder’s choice to retire the side.
Vela survived a throwing error by Reyes in the second inning, but couldn’t overcome two more errors in the third, when Brownfield scored three more times. Cardenas struck out but reached second when catcher Jaime Muela dropped the ball, then threw over first baseman Robert Nunez’ head. Cardenas then was caught in a rundown on a Gonzales grounder to short, but made it to third when Rayos dropped another throw. Green followed with a two-run single and Cruz then tripled to right-centerfield for a 7-0 lead.
In the fourth, Green and Cruz would have RBI singles after walks to Becker and Cardenas. Rayos replaced Vela on the mound following the singles, but walked Jobe, Hope and Garcia to force home two more runs and make it 11-0.
Meanwhile, Wilkins wasn’t overpowering Pecos, but had the Eagles swinging at bad pitches over the first three innings. Oscar Parada broke up the no-hitter in the fourth with a one-out triple, but was left stranded there. In the fifth, the Eagles finally got on the scoreboard, when Rayos reached on a two-base throwing error by Garcia at third base and scored on Muela’s single to center. He would go to second on a bad pickoff throw by Wilkes, but the Eagles were unable to avoid having the game end under the 10-run rule when Victor Reyes struck out to end the inning.
Valencia (1-1) took the loss for the Eagles, who will take on Seminole, in a rematch of last year’s Class 3A bi-district playoff series won by Pecos in two games. The Indians dropped their tournament opener to Monahans, 7-2. Kermit beat Lake View, 9-2, in another tournament opener, while Presidio shut out Big Spring and Greenwood defeated Lamesa in other first round games involving District 4-3A teams.
Brownfield 4 0 3 4 0 -- 11 6 4
Pecos 0 0 0 0 1 -- 1 2 4
Brownfield, Wilkins and Jobe. Pecos, Valencia, Vela (1), Rayos (4) and Muela.
E - Pecos, Rayos 2, J. Reyes, Muela. Brownfield, Becker, Jobe, Garcia, Wilkins. DP - Brownfield 1. 3B - Brownfield, Cruz. Pecos, Parada. SB - Brownfield, Cardenas, Gonzales 2. CS - Brownfield, Dominguez (by Muela). WP - Vela. PB - Muela.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
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Copyright 2003 by Pecos Enterprise
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