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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Eagles’ JV falls to Wildcats’ varsity, 44-14
The Pecos Eagles’ junior varsity football team was able to play the Wink Wildcats varsity close for a while on Friday night, in the JV’s lone match-up against a varsity opponent this season. But Wink’s running game proved to be too much for Pecos, which lost for the second time in six games this season, by a 44-14 final score.
The JV played on Friday while the Eagles’ junior high teams were back to playing on their normal Thursday, after Saturday games the previous week in Snyder. This time, Pecos traveled to Greenwood, where the seventh grade teams split and the eighth grade was swept by the Rangers.
The JV held an early lead of 7-6 over Wink, on a 26-yard touchdown pass from Dominic Bejarano to Ramiro Pinales, and Robert Orona’s extra point kick. But Sawyer McGuire scored on a two-yard run just before the end of the first period, and the Wildcats would score two more times in the second period to grab a 24-7 lead.
Pecos would answer to open the third period with a seven-yard TD pass from Bejarano to Alvaro Contreras, but Wink would get that score back a few minutes later on an 11-yard TD run by Travis Thomas, then got two final scores in the fourth quarter by Logan Tipping, who had 205 of Wink’s 372 yards rushing on the night.
In the eighth grade games, the ‘B’ team fell to 1-3 on the season with a 6-0 loss to Greenwood, while the ‘A’ team dropped a 28-6 decision to the Rangers, and are also 1-3 on the season.
Coach Art Rios said the ‘A’ team played well despite their loss. “We were without three of our starters due to suspensions and injuries,” he said. “We’ve had kids missing practice, and we’re trying to get that problem under control now, before they get to high school.”
“Defensively, they scored on some quick plays. They had three long touchdowns, but other than that, we held them pretty good,” Rios said. “Bradley Shaw had his best game of the season. He threw for about 150 yards.”
He said Justin Thornton, Damien Perea and Zack Ramirez ran the ball well for Pecos, while Ramirez, Perea, Brandon Franco, Isaiah Natividad and Aaron Castillo had good games on defense for the Eagles.
In the ‘B’ team’s loss, Rios said quarterback Alvaro Dominguez and tight end Elijah Jones played well despite the shutout, while Vincente Munoz had a good game defensively for Pecos.
The seventh grade ‘A’ team saw their season record drop to 2-2 with a 20-8 loss to Greenwood, while the seventh ‘A’ team improved to 4-0 after a 22-0 win over the Rangers.
The ‘A’ team got their score on a 2-yard touchdown run by Cesar Ortega, with Mario Gallardo passing to Angel Chavez for the two-point conversion. In the ‘B’ game Jeffrey Trujillo had a 40-yard touchdown pass to Juan Ramirez and a 5-yard run for another touchdown for the Eagles. Jacob Chavez added the other TD on a 15-yard run and also had a two-point conversion run, while Silvestre Ramirez had the other conversion run for Pecos.
The only team that didn’t play was Pecos’ freshmen, which saw their game against Fort Stockton cancelled. The ninth grade and JV teams will be on the road this week against Fort Stockton, while the junior high teams will host the Panthers, in the first of three straight weeks of games for the seventh and eighth graders against Fort Stockton.
Lions’ den proves easier for Eagles in rematch
After getting a bit of a scare from the Clint Lions at home a month ago in their District 4-3A volleyball opener, the Pecos Eagles went west to Clint on Saturday and came away with their sixth victory in six tries in district, sweeping the Lions by 25-19, 25-15, 25-20 final scores.
The Eagles had split the first two games of their match against the Lions in Pecos on Sept. 6, before the Eagles took control in the third and fourth games to earn the victory. This time, coach Ruth McWilliams said her team had a few problems, but were in control against Clint most of the way.
“We played a lot better. We made some unforced errors, but we continued to play and continued to work hard,” said McWilliams. “When they came here we had a little bit of a letdown, but this time, I thought we played really well. We got our shots in and did what we were supposed to do.”
“Leia (McWilliams), Gabby (Garcia) and Jasmine (Rayos) had good offensive games, Ally (Salcido) had a good offensive game and Kristen Ikeler played well defensively,” she said. “Aileen Rayos served and set the ball well. It’s really hard to single anybody out, because in volleyball everybody on the court has to contribute. You can’t hide anybody.”
The win was the 13th straight for the Eagles and improved their season record to 24-12. It also kept Pecos a game up on Fabens in the district standings, after the Wildcats got past Tornillo in four games on Saturday.
The Eagles’ next district match will be this Saturday at home against Anthony, while the Eagles will be on the road Tuesday night in Denver City for a non-district match against the Mustangs.
“Denver City will be a fairly good match, and one we really do need to do,” McWilliams said.
The Eagles also took Saturday’s junior varsity match, winning in two games by 25-17, 25-20 scores, while Pecos’ freshman team lost in three to Clint, by 29-27, 24-26, 25-16 scores.
Pecos swimmers score victories over El Paso squads
The Pecos Eagles swimming team got a chance to look at their three main regional rivals out of El Paso over the past several years this past weekend, and came away with wins on Friday in the team standings over the El Paso High Tigers, and on Saturday over the El Paso Andress Eagles and the El Paso Chapin Huskies.
Pecos swam on Friday against the Tigers, with the Eagle girls edging El Paso by a 92-78 margin while the boys scored a 106-74 victory. On Saturday, they swam against both Andress and Chapin, with the boys winning by a 138-108 margin over the Huskies, with Andress third with 78 points, while the girls edged Chapin, 115-114, with Andress third with 29 points.
It was the first time since 2004 that Pecos’ girls have been able to beat Chapin, which has won the past four Region I-4A titles after Pecos had taken four straight regional championships. “Chapin still looks pretty good on the girls’ side, and they looked good on the boys’ side, too,” said Eagles’ coach Terri Morse. “El Paso High looked good on the boys’ side, and their 200 free relay beat our boys, and they beat us in the medley relay, too.”
“Andress didn’t have a whole lot, or else they were missing a whole bunch the way we have at Monahans,” Morse said, referring to the Monahans Invitational, where Pecos has faced the El Paso schools prior to regionals in recent years. “This lets us know what we’re going to see at regionals instead of just reading the scores in the paper, and usually we’re missing people for the FFA in Big Spring when we go to the Monahans meet.”
“I thought overall we did fairly well. I saw some times drop on several people in different events,” she said. “Our times were probably a little slower on Saturday than what they were on Friday, but that was understandable, plus some of our kids swam in different events.”
Against El Paso High, the girls got wins in two of the three relays. Conner Armstrong, Alyson Reynolds, Alexcia Mendoza and Anatalia Hernandez took the 200 medley relay in 2:05.53, and Armstrong, Reynolds, Dakota Hegar and Adrianna Roman took the 200 free relay with a 1:54.24 time. Individually for the girls, they got first place finishes from Reynolds in the 200 medley, with a 2:26.86 time, and the 100-yard breaststroke, with a 1:15.62 time, along with Mendoza in the 100-yard butterfly, with a 1:09.78 time, Armstrong in the 100 backstroke, with a 1:08.79 time, and Lauren Elliott in the 100 free, with a 1:03.91 time.
The other top three finishes for Pecos were Hegar, second in the 100 free and third in the 200 free; Armstrong and Roman, second and third in the 50 free; Roman and Hernandez, second and third in the 500 free; Mendoza, second in the 100 breaststroke; Elliott, third in the 100 back, and girls’ 400 freestyle relay team, which placed second.
The boys got individual wins on against El Paso in just two swimming events, along with the 400 free relay, where the Eagles had a first and second with their ‘A’ and ‘B’ relays. The other wins came from Edward Navarro, who took the 200 free in 2:04.53, and Josh Elliott, who won the 200 medley with a 2:09.88 time. Navarro was later second in the 100 free and Elliott placed second in the 100 fly, and both were part of the 200 medley relay team that finished second.
Hector Ramos placed first in 1-meter diving with Tanner Hardwick second and Gregory Ramon third. Morse said because none of the El Paso schools had any divers, those events were held in Pecos before the team traveled to the dual meets. The same scores were used for calculating point totals on Friday and Saturday, and none of the schools had any divers on the girls’ side.
The ‘B’ medley relay team took third for Pecos, while the other Top 3 finishes included Tye Hegar, third in the 200 free; Carlos Navarro and Abraham Lujan, second and third in the 200 medley; Hector and Gregory Roman, second in third in the 50 free; Gus Mendoza, third in the 100 fly; Frankie Morin, third in the 100 free; Mendoza and Lujan, second and third in the 500 free; Morin, second in the 100 backstroke; and the 200 free relay team, which took second.
On Saturday, Elliott, Mendoza and both Navarros took the 200 medley relay with a 1:50.99 time, 1 1/2 seconds better than their time on Friday, while Elliott, the Navarros and Hector Roman won the 400 free relay with a 3:45.01 time, half a second slower than on Friday. In the individual races, the winners for Pecos were Mendoza in the 100 fly, with a 1:04.54 time; Elliott in the 100 back, with a 58.70 time, Edward Navarro in the 500 free, with a 5:46.21 time; and Carlos Navarro in the 100 breaststroke, with a 1:09.94 time.
In their other races, Elliott was second in the 100 free; Mendoza was second in the 200 medley; Carlos Navarro was second in the 50 free and Edward Navarro was third in the 200 free. Others to finish in the top three were Frankie Morin, second in the 200 free; Hardwick, third in the 100 fly; and the boys’ 200 free relay team, which placed third.
The girls picked up one relay victory on Saturday, in the 200 medley, were Armstrong, Reynolds, Mendoza and Hernandez had a 2:06.26 time. Mendoza also won the 200 medley with a 2:31.26 time and Reynolds took the 500 free with a 5:55.17 time, while she was second in the 200 free and Mendoza was second in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Others to place in the top three for the girls against Chapin and Andress were Roman, third in the 200 free; Hernandez, third in the 200 medley and the 100 fly; Hegar, second in the 50 free; Roman and Armstrong, second and third in the 100 free; Elliott, third in the 500 free; Armstrong and Elliott, second and third in the 100 backstroke; the 200 free relay team, which was second, and the Eagles ‘B’ 400 freestyle relay team, which placed third.
The Eagles will be off this weekend, and will have their next meet on the weekend of Oct. 17-18, in Abilene.
Bears checkmate Knights’ attack in 2nd half
The Balmorhea Bears tightened up their defense in the second half of their game Friday night against the El Paso Bethel Christian Knights, and were able to bounce back from a homecoming loss the previous Friday, as the Bears closed out their pre-district schedule with a 72-47 home field victory over the Knights.
Deshawn Adams running and passing helped Bethel Christian score 19 points in a span of 99 seconds in the second period and jump out to a 33-20 lead over the Bears. But Balmorhea would score 52 of the next 56 points, as they were able to shut down El Paso’s running game, while the Knights were unable to contain Bears’ running back Adam Roman.
Roman ran for 182 yards and four touchdowns, most of that coming after El Paso had taken their 13-point lead. Most of that was due to Adams, who ran for 184 yards and threw for another 86 in the first half against Balmorhea’s defense.
“We had some problems letting him get outside our containment in the first half,” said Bears’ coach Debiasie Mendoza, who had hoped to be able to power the ball down the field against the Knights, but saw his team hurt early by a couple of first half turnovers.
“We knew we could run it out of the spread. We wanted to try and run it out of the tight formation, and we didn’t do as well as I hoped, but once we started opening it up we did all right,” Mendoza said.
Neither team did anything on offense at the outset of the game, before scoring two touchdowns apiece in the final four minutes of the opening period.
Adams was involved in all seven of El Paso’s touchdowns, including the one on defense, which came after Alvaro Beltran picked him off on Bethel’s second series in the end zone. Beltran was tackled at the one, and on the next play he and Roman couldn’t get a handoff, and Adams recovered the fumble in the end zone for a 6-0 El Paso lead.
The Bears answered that with an 18-yard touchdown run by Ryan Mondragon on their next series, which was set up by a 10-yard scramble by Roman on a 4th-and-6 play from the El Paso 30. But a facemask helped the Knights start their next series in Bears’ territory, and Adams ran through the defense for a 33 yard score 19 seconds after Balmorhea tied the game.
Tay Klinrit’s extra point made it 14-6, but the Bears would need just three plays on their next series to score, this time with Beltran finding Jeremy Baeza behind the Knights’ defense for a 45-yard score. Mondragon’s extra point tied the game with 18 seconds left in the period.
Mondragon would sack Adams for a six yard loss on a 4th-and-6 play in El Paso territory on the next series, giving the Bears the ball at the Bethel Christian 26, and Roman then got his first touchdown on the first play from scrimmage to give the Bears their first lead of the night 55 seconds into the quarter.
Exactly two minutes later the Bears were 13 points behind, as Adams scored on a 36-yard run one play after the ensuing kickoff, then threw 51 yards to Byron Jackson after Darion Henry recovered another missed handoff between Roman and Beltran two plays following the kickoff. The Knights, who attempted onside kicks following most of their scores, were able to recover just one, but it came after Jackson’s first TD, and after a first down by Adams was wiped out by an illegal block, he then found Jackson again, this time for a 29-yard TD that made it a 33-20 game with 7:05 left in the half.
The lead was cut to 33-28 less than a minute later when Roman scored his second touchdown, this on a 21-yard run following a Bears’ illegal block penalty where he broke three tackles to reach the end zone. El Paso then went on the longest drive of the night, which was marred by a series of penalties on both sides, the biggest an offensive facemask call against the Knights that wiped out a three-yard touchdown run by Adams on fourth down.
Forced back to the 13, Adams was sacked again by Mondragon, giving the ball back to the Bears at the 18. Balmorhea then would then go 62 yards in 10 plays to take the lead, converting a 4th-and-7 early in the drive on a 10-yard pass from Baeza to Daniel Bejarano, then overcoming a 22-yard loss on a pass from Roman to Baeza when Roman and Mondragon hooked up on a 35-yard pass play on 4th-and-17.
A roughing the passer call moved the ball down to the four, and Roman went over from a yard out two plays later, and 12 seconds before halftime.
Up 36-33, the Bears took the second half kickoff and held the ball for the first 4:15 of the period for their next score, on a 6-yard pass from Beltran to Bejarano. Balmorhea again converted two fourth down plays to keep their drive alive, as Roman ran for seven yards on a 4th-and-1 at the El Paso 32, and then picked up 14 on a 4th-and-10, after an illegal block downfield wiped out a first down run by Beltran.
Adams would break free for big runs three times on El Paso’s first possession of the second half, including a 19-yard run that set up his 1-yard pass to Henry that got the Knights back to within three, at 42-39. But the Bears then came out and got first down runs by Baeza and Marcos Beltran on their next series, to set up another TD by Roman, this time on a 9-yard draw play.
El Paso looked as if it would answer again, when Adams ran for 25 yards on a 4th-and-25 play. But he was sacked by Mondragon for a 13-yard loss as the period ended, and this time, was unable to run out of trouble as the final quarter began, giving the ball back to the Bears at their own 34. Roman then went up the middle again and broke several more tackles, finally getting free for a 46-yard score to give the Bears a three-touchdown lead.
“We changed up our rusher,” Mendoza said. “We moved our fastest rusher (Mondragon) over to the wide side of the field and moved our slower rusher over to the short side, and that was the big difference in the second half.”
Down 58-39, the Knights tried to go to the air, but Henry couldn’t hang onto a 4th-and-10 pass and Balmorhea took over at the El Paso 35. Roman would run for 17 yards, and then Marcos Beltran got around the left end for 18 yards and the score with 7:12 to play. Bethel Christian would continue to try and throw without success on their next series, giving the ball up again on downs. The Bears’ final TD came on a 20-yard pass from Alvaro to Marcos Beltran with 4:04 left in the game, before the Knights finally were able to connect through the air, with Adams hitting Rico Diaz DeLeon for a 41-yard score with 1:20 to play.
The win improved Balmorhea’s record to 4-2 going into their bye week, while the district’s four other teams are scheduled to start play in District --- Division II six-man. The Marathon—game will depend on the Mustangs being able to field a team, after not playing a pre-district schedule.
The Bears’ next game will also be at home, on Oct. 17 against Sanderson.
Pecos cross-country boys, girls get six in Top 20
The Pecos Eagle girls and boys cross country teams didn’t have as high a finish individually on Saturday as they have in their previous two meets, but both teams were able to place three runners in the Top 20 at the Alpine Invitational.
Edward Rodriguez was seventh, German Rodriguez 13th and Gus Mendoza took 15th in the boys’ three-mile run on Saturday, while Ashley Jasso was 13th, Kristal Carrasco was 18th and Sabryna Moya was 19th in the varsity girls’ two-mile race. Assistant coach Teresa Bigham said official times were not available for the boys’ results, but Jasso had a 17:19, Carrasco a 17:54 and Moya ran an 18:04 over the course in Alpine.
Diahnna Alvarez was the other runner for the girls on Saturday, placing 45th with a 21:42 time out of 63 runners. The boys had two other runners, Dario Morales, who finished 36th and Carlos Valenzuela, who was 62nd.
The junior high teams also ran on Saturday in Alpine and had three runners place in the Top 10. The girls’ lone runner, Katrina Maldonado, took third out of 23 runners, with an 18:03 time; while the boys got a seventh from Anthony Natividad, with a 16:52 time, and a ninth from Abel Mendoza, with a time of 17:17.
Ramon Mata was 24th with a 19:20 time; and Ignacio Rodriguez placed 36th with a 21:01 time, out of 41 overall runners in the boys’ junior high division.
The cross-country team has a rare mid-week race this coming Thursday, when they travel to Odessa for varsity-only competition. Pecos has one more meet after that, in Monahans on Oct. 18, before District 4-3A competition on Nov. 1, at Chimizal National Park in El Paso.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
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