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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Friday, March 17, 2006
Bears earn three firsts at Sanderson track
Balmorhea’s Alexis Lozano and A.J. Garcia picked up first place medals in the shot put and discus at the Sanderson Invitational track meet, with Lozano also earning a second behind Garcia in the discus at the March 3 meet, while Jalonnie Sanchez earned the only first place medal of the day for the girls.
Coach Adolfo Garcia said Lozano threw 49-foot-8 to win the shot put, while Garcia had a 144-foot-5 toss to take the discus. Lozano was second there with a 120-foot-2 1/2 throw, and the Bears’ Harry Barron placed fourth, with a 107-10 1/2 effort. In the shot put, Garcia was fourth, throwing 38-foot-3 and Barron fifth, with a 35-6 throw.
Garcia the other points for the Bears at the meet on the boys’ side came from fifth place finishes in the 400 and 800 meter relays.
Sanchez won the triple jump with a 30-foot-5 effort. She also placed sixth in the long jump, Garcia said, while in the running events, Sanchez earned a fifth in the 200 meter dash.
Golfers struggle in rounds at Andrews, San Angelo
The Pecos Eagles girls golf team struggled to a ninth place finish this past weekend at the Andrews Girls Golf Tournament, the next-to-last tournament for the Eagles before the start of District 3-3A play.
Pecos’ boys also struggled last weekend, playing in the San Angelo Invitational, where they finished 18th out of 19 teams in the Blue Division.
Pecos’ girls shot a 377-375-752 for the 36-hole tournament; leaving them 18 strokes in back of district rival Monahans and 118 shots behind first place Snyder. “There was wind the first day, but it was there for everyone,” said Eagles’ coach Tina Doan. “It was beautiful the second day and we still had problems.”
Shelly Martinez shot an 82-83-165 and finished in 10th place in the medalist standings, while Carolina Briones shot 96s both days for a 192 score, Stephanie Galindo shot a 99-96-195, Rica Pino shot 100-100-200, and Evelyn Flores had a 100-105-205.
Doan did say the Eagles played without their No. 2 golfer Eleanor Mason, who was out of town for the spring break weekend. “It always hurts when you go in a player short,” she said. “With Eleanor Mason out of town I brought Evelyn up, and sh3e did a good job of holding up her end of the deal, but we’ve got to get the scores lower from our others to compete.”
“We’ve got about two weeks to figure this out before we start our district round at Seminole,” Doan said. Pecos goes to Lamesa for a one-round tournament next Thursday, and then opens district play in Seminole on March 27.
The San Angelo Invitational was the boys’ final tournament before their district opener, at home on March 30, and coach Kim Anderson said the Eagles struggled with the San Angelo Country Club golf course this past weekend. Pecos shot a 396 on Friday, then cut that to a 363 on Saturday for a 759 overall score.
Joseph Tarin led the Eagles with rounds of 89 and 83 for a 172 total, while Zack Morton had a 100-87-187, Heath Armstrong shot a 95-96-191, Nathan Duke shot a 112-97-209 and Guthrie Long had a 126-116-241.
Aledo won the Blue Division title with a team score of 600. Fort Stockton was the only other District 3-3A team entered in the tournament, and placed 14th with a 694 score.
Stockton uses 4th, 5th innings to rout Pecos
The Pecos Eagles dodged a few bullets over the first three innings of their softball game against the Fort Stockton Prowlers on Tuesday. But were then cut down by a series of hits and errors, as the host Prowlers scored nine unanswered runs over three innings and went on to a 9-4 victory over the Eagles.
The loss, the third of the season by the Eagles against the Prowlers, dropped Pecos to 2-1 in District 3-3A play going into their 5 p.m. game on Friday in Monahans against the 2-0 Loboes, who beat Fort Stockton by an 11-1 score last week.
“We played very well for the first four innings, but we never got our bats going,” said Eagles’ coach Tammy Walls. “The top of our lineup was just non-productive on Tuesday.”
Eagles clean-up hitter Jessica Florez followed up her back-to-back home run games last week in Pecos’ wins over Lamesa and Seminole with three hits on Tuesday. But it wasn’t until the seventh inning that she came up with a runner in scoring position against Cecilia Molinar, and singled home the first of three runs in the inning, and by then the Prowlers had built an eight-run lead off pitcher Amalie Herrera.
Herrera had scored the first run of the game in the first inning, after walking with two out and coming around on singles by Florez and Savannah Ewing. Outfielder Jenny Palomino kept the Eagles ahead in the bottom of the first, throwing out Lupita Leyva at home plate on a Heather Garvin fly out to end the inning, and Herrera was able to strike out Gabby Cordero with the bases loaded in the third to preserve the 1-0 lead. But things fell apart in the fourth, when Fort Stockton finally grabbed the lead on a two-run single by Ruby Bernal.
“We were trying to pitch them inside, and Amalie had some success for a while, but the umpire wasn’t consistent with his strike zone,” Walls said. “We had an error, then a walk and another walk, and they got the bases loaded and capitalized with a hit. When things like that happen and you’re not hitting, it’s a bad situation.”
Friday’s game against Monahans is the last of a stretch of three straight district road games for the Eagles. They come home for a non-district game against Marfa next Tuesday, and then close out the first half of district play by hosting Greenwood and Presidio.
Junior high swimmers get 3rd at Odessa
The Pecos Eagle junior high school swim team placed third out of 12 teams competing on March 4 at the Odessa Spring Invitational.
Lubbock Irons and Lubbock Evans placed in the top two spots in both divisions, while Pecos’ girls scored 135 1/2 points and the Eagle boys had 130 points.
“Overall I felt the kids did an exceptional job at this competition,” said coach Evan Bates. “Alyson Reynolds broke two meet records in the 100 individual medley with a time of 1:09.34 and also the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:49.74.”
Reynolds’ time in the 500 was seven seconds off the winning time in the race at the girls 500 free finals in the Region I-4A meet last month, and better than all other times at the high school regional. The seventh grader also won the 50-yard breaststroke, with a 37.73 time.
Bates said another Eagle seventh grader, Conner Armstrong, also set a record in Odessa, winning the 200 freestyle with a time of 2:11.83, while she placed second in the 50 yard butterfly with a time of 32.57 and tied for third in the 50-yard backstroke, with a 34.05 time.
Jessica Dickenson was sixth, Dakota Long was 13th, Amanda James 15th and Anatalia Hernandez was 16th in the 50 breaststroke; James was 19th in the 200 freestyle; Hernandez was 14th and Long 16th in the 100 medley; Dickenson was 31st, Tiffany Hunter 37th, James 44th and Abagail Valenzuela 52nd in the 50 free; Hunter was 15th, Long 16th and Magdeline Hernandez was 21st in the 50 yard butterfly; Anatalia Hernandez was 11th, Dickenson 21st, Magdeline Hernandez 26th and Valenzuela 27th in the 100 free; and Hunter was 21st in the 50 yard backstroke for the Eagles’ other individual finishes. In the relays, James, Reynolds, Armstrong and Long placed fifth in the 200 medley relay, while in the 200 free relay, the same four finished fifth, while the ‘B’ relay team of Dickenson, Hunter and both Hernandezes finished 11th.
The boys had one win at the Odessa meet, from eighth grader Derek Teague in the 500 free, with a 6:08.84 time. He also placed third in the 50 free with a 27.40 time and fourth in the 50-yard breaststroke, while Augustine Mendoza earned Pecos’ other individual medal, with a third in the 200 freestyle with a time of 2:19.40. He also placed fourth in the 50-yard butterfly and sixth in the 50-yard backstroke.
In other events, Tanner Hardwick was ninth and Carlos Navarro 12th in the 100 medley; Sammy Sandoval was 21st, Navar Galnido 32nd and Justin Gonzales 33rd in the 50 free; Hardwick was 14th and Navarro 16th in the 50 fly; Sandoval was 23rd, Galindo 27th and Medina 28th in the 100 free; Sandoval was 18th, Galindo 26th, Medina 27th and Gonzales 28th in the 50 yard backstroke; and Hardwick was 11th and Navarro 14th in the 50-yard breaststroke.
Pecos also got a third place medal from Teague, Hardwick, Mendoza and Sandoval in the 200 medley relay, while the same four were fifth in the 200 free relay, with a 2:20.95 time. The Eagles’ ‘B’ relay in that event of Medina, Gonzales, Galindo and Navarro, placed ninth.
Lubbock Irons won the boys’ division with 285 points to 239 for Lubbock Evans, while Evans won on the girls’ side with 387 points to 213 1/2 for Irons. Pampa was the only other non-Class 5A level junior high at the meet, and placed fourth in both girls and boys divisions, with 100 and 110 points respectively
Bad defense costs Eagles in 6-1 loss
The Pecos Eagles’ fielding problems that showed up in the final games of the West Texas March Classic last weekend continued into their District 3-3A opener Tuesday night at home against the Fort Stockton Panthers, while the hitting the Eagles had used to survive one of those games and almost survive the other wasn’t around, in Pecos 6-1 loss to the Panthers.
Pecos made four errors in the second inning that led to three Fort Stockton runs, while the Panthers used another error in the seventh to key a second three-run rally to back the three-hit pitching of Bryant Arcides. The Panther starter didn’t dominate the Eagles, but got them to hit a series of fly balls that turned into easy outs as they were knocked down by Tuesday’s strong southeast wind that blew directly towards home played most of the night.
“They think every time their up at bat they can hit a home run,” said Eagles’ coach Elias Payan. “I told them the wind was blowing in and they had to hit ground balls and line drives, but all we did was hit pop ups. We didn’t do what we’re supposed to do.
“What it came down to was our lack of execution, and they did the little things they needed to do to beat us,” said Payan “We didn’t make the plays in the field, and we get a perfect chance to put a bunt down and it turns into a double play.”
The bunt play came was one out and the bases loaded in the second, after Pecos had scored once to cut Fort Stockton’s lead to 3-1. Payan had Luis Licon bunt on a two strike pitch, but he missed the ball, and Jonathan Garcia was then caught in a rundown and tagged out trying to get back to third base. The Eagles had scored on Chris Garnto’s RBI single, after Edward Valencia was hit by a pitch and Garcia walked, and Jaime Mendoza walked after the single to load the bases.
Fort Stockton’s three run rally in the top of the inning started with a single by Octavio Contreras and a stolen base by courtesy runner Justin Fuentes before the mistakes began. Jose Chavez missed Bryant Gonzales’ grounder to second, allowing Fuentes to score, and Isaiah Rayos then threw away a potential double play grounder by M.J. Salmon, putting runners on second and third.
The Panthers then were able to execute their squeeze bunt, with Billy Bradshaw getting the ball down that pitcher Eddie Vela bobbled, allowing both Gonzales to score and Bradshaw to reach base. Omar Calderon’s slow bouncer to third then scored Salmon with the third run.
Arcides kept Pecos from getting its lead runner on base in any inning on Tuesday, and allowed just one running in an inning until the seventh. By then, Fort Stockton had scored three more times, as Bradshaw reached scored to lead off the seventh when Chavez and Garcia got crossed up on his fly ball down the line in right and let it drop in. He then scored on Calderon’s single to right, as Garnto couldn’t field Garcia’s throw from right field cleanly.
Calderon went to second on the throw home, moved to third on a wild pitch and scored when Adrian Olivas chopped a single past the drawn-in infield. He then stole second, moved to third on a passed ball, and scored on J.J. Hickman’s grounder to second base.
The loss dropped Pecos to 12-3 for the season, and gave the Eagles their first losing streak of 2006, going into Friday’s 7 p.m. game against Monahans. The Eagles won a controversial 4-2 victory over the Loboes last season in Monahans, when a light tower shorted out with two outs in the top of the seventh inning. Loboes’ coach Arcadio Rivera wanted the game continued at a later date, while Payan wanted the game called due to the lack of lights, and ended up winning the dispute following an administrative review.
“They’ll be ready for us,” said Payan, who’ll pitch Josh Anchondo, 1-1, on Friday. Anchondo lost to Iowa Park on Saturday in the title game of the West Texas March Classic, but did not play on Tuesday due to ineligibility during regular school days.
“No one is afraid of us anymore,” Payan said. “People want to beat us, and they think they can beat us. We can’t just show up and expect to win games, so we’ve got to get it in our minds to play ball.”
Pecos Enterprise
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