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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Friday, August 15, 2008
Eagles’ grid season ticket renewals now underway
Season tickets for the Pecos Eagles 2008 home football games went on sale on Monday for 2007 season ticket holders, while new ticket buyers can purchase their tickets starting in two weeks for this year’s five home games.
Tickets can be purchased now through Aug. 22 at the Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD business office, 1302 S. Park St., by last year’s season ticket holders for this year’s games. Season tickets for new ticket-buyers will then be available from Aug. 25 through Sept. 5, when Pecos plays their first home game, against Kermit. Tickets are $5 per game, and $25 for the full five-game package.
The Eagles’ other home games in 2008 are Sept. 5 against Kermit, Sept. 19 versus Monahans, Oct. 10 versus Fort Stockton, Oct. 24 against Tornillo and Nov. 7 versus Clint. The last three games are District 4-3A contests, and the Oct. 24 game against Tornillo will be Pecos’ 2008 homecoming game.
Pecos opens its regular season with a neutral site game in Alpine on Aug. 29. The Eagles’ other four road games this year are Sept. 12 at Denver City, Sept. 26 in Snyder, Oct. 17 at Fabens and Oct. 31 at Anthony. The two October road games are district contests.
The Eagles will also play at home this Saturday, when they scrimmage the Seminole Indians starting at 10 a.m. at Eagle Stadium. Pecos’ other preseason scrimmage is Oct. 21 at Greenwood against the Rangers.
Eagles back in EP after split of season openers
The Pecos Eagles opened their 2008 volleyball season with a split of two games in El Paso, which is also where the Eagles will be this weekend, for the first of their three pre-district tournaments.
Pecos dropped their season opener to El Paso Eastwood by scores of 25-15, 26-24, 25-21, then turned around and defeated El Paso Montwood, 25-21, 25-20, 26-24 to even their record at 1-1 going into the start of the El Paso Riverside Tournament on Friday.
Coach Ruth McWilliams said the Eagles are tentatively scheduled to open the tournament against Riverside’s junior varsity team at 10 a.m. CDT. However, Pecos could end up facing a varsity squad in their opening match, if a 16th team can be found to fill out the bracket.
“We won’t know until we get there,” she said.
Eastwood is one of the 14 other varsity teams along with Pecos that will be in the Riverside Tournament. Tornillo, whom the Eagles have beaten in the bi-district round of the Class 3A playoffs the past two seasons, will also be in the field, and will be the only district rival Pecos could see this weekend. Most of the other schools in the field are Class 4A and 5A schools, all from the El Paso area.
McWilliams said in Tuesday’s opener, the Eagles got off to a slow start. “Eastwood is a good team and we’re a good team, but mostly our problem was communication and being sure of each other.
“We had the lead in Games 2 and 3, but because of stress and a lack of communication they came back on us,” she said. “I thought we did a good job. We just pressed too hard.”
In the later game against Montwood, McWilliams said she made one lineup change. “I had Kristen Ikeler serving and playing the back row, and I felt like she did us a good job.
“We played a lot better against Montwood. We played our positions better. It’s one thing to do it during practice and another to try and do it in a game,” she said, adding that she’ll probably keep the same lineup for Friday’s matches in El Paso.
“It worked for us and we looked good, so as long as it’s working why change it?” McWilliams said.
The Eagles’ junior varsity dropped both of their opening games on Tuesday in El Paso, losing by a 25-15, 25-7 score to Eastwood before falling in three games to Montwood, 20-25, 25-14, 25-10. Pecos’ freshman team also lost their season openers to the Troopers and the Rams, falling to Eastwood, 25-12, 25-18, and to Montwood, 25-21, 25-16.
The sub-varsity teams were two of five playing for Pecos on Tuesday. The three others were in Wink, where the Eagles’ JV lost to the Wildcats’ varsity, 25-11, 25-15, 25-14; while the freshman purple team downed the Wildcats’ JV, 24-26, 25-15, 25-20; and the freshman gold team beat Wink’s ninth graders, 24-26, 25-22, 25-20.
The JV and the freshmen teams will be merged back into two squads for this weekend’s Sandhills Tournament in Monahans. The ninth grade opened pool play on Thursday against Midland High, Fort Stockton and Monahans White at the Sudderth Elementary School gym.
Pecos seeking improvement in opening football scrimmage
The opening scrimmage of the 2007 season at Eagle Stadium turned out to be a pretty good indicator of how things would go overall for the Pecos Eagles.
Saturday morning, the 2008 Eagles will see how things go this time around against the Seminole Indians, though it will be another 2-3 months before Pecos finds out if things will be better this time around than they ended up a year ago.
Coach Chris Henson said the scrimmage will start at 9 a.m. with the freshman and junior varsity squads facing Seminole. “We’re going to try and start the varsity at 10:30 a.m.,” he said, which will include 20-play series on offense and defense for the first team units, following by 15-play series for the second team offense and defense and then 10 more plays each for the first team squads
The Eagles return 27 players off last year’s team, which started 0-7 and finished with a 2-8 record, 2-4 in district play. That included a 6-2 scrimmage loss to Seminole, in which the Indians opened things up with a 70-yard score on their first play.
Things did improve for the Eagles, especially on offense, in the second half of last season. Pecos scored 126 points in their final three games, and the offense has looked go so far during two-a-day workouts. They return seven starters off last year’s team on offense, including running back Hector Ramirez, who was second in the district last season with 1,093 yards rushing.
Cal Moring, who had the long TD run to open up last year’s scrimmage, is also back for the Indians, at quarterback, where he threw for 1,093 yards and 10 TDs and ran for another 553 yards and three scores. But while the Eagles will be returning nine starters defensively from their team a year ago, Seminole will be starting fresh, with just one of their 11 starters off last year’s team that finished 8-5 and won the District 4-3A title.
Realignment by the University Interscholastic League this year now has the Eagles in District 4-3A, along with Fort Stockton, last year’s District 1-3A champ, and Clint, Fabens, Anthony and Tornillo. Seminole, meanwhile, moves into a new District 3-3A with Pecos’ former district rival, Monahans, and Andrews, Brownfield, Lamesa and Greenwood, who’ll host the Eagles next Thursday in the teams’ final preseason scrimmage.
The varsity scrimmage will use the full field at Eagle Stadium, while the JV and 9th grade teams will start their series at the same time from the opposing team’s 40-yard-line. Henson said those scrimmages will go 15 plays on offense and defense on the first two series, and then 10 plays on the third series.
Admission to Saturday’s scrimmage will be $2 per person, with the proceeds going towards the Texas High School Coaches Association’s “Our Day to Shine” program. The program, which was first instituted last year, provides funds for players and coaches with special needs or hardships.
The THSCA said 130 schools participated in the program last year, raising over $45,000. THSCA paid $24,000 to coaches and athletes with special needs, along with a donation to the American Red Cross’ Hurricane Relief Fund.
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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