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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Friday, August 22, 2008
Eagles face Permian to start SA tourney
The Pecos Eagles volleyball team will try to get back over the .500 mark on Friday, and try to get into the championship bracket of the Nita Vannoy San Angelo Invitational Tournament.
Pecos saw its record drop to 4-4 on Tuesday with a pair of losses in El Paso, to the El Paso Americas Trailblazers and the El Paso High Tigers. The Tigers, who won the Ysleta ISD Tournament the Eagles competed in last weekend, downed Pecos by scores of 25-21, 25-21, 24-26, 25-22, while Americas also won in four games, by 25-21, 17-25, 25-17, 25-21 scores.
Coach Ruth McWilliams said while the Eagles had their problems against the undefeated Tigers, she was happy overall with the team’s play.
“We looked good. I can’t complain,” she said. “We just have to get our team at times to be more consistent. We get a little anxious at times, especially when the games get a little close and other teams challenge us.
“We made some unforced errors, but overall the girls play hard,” she said. “Mostly they were on offense, though we have a tendency to be a little slow-footed on defense at times. But mostly the unforced errors were on offense, when we would hit the ball out or hit the ball into the net when we had a chance to do something.”
She added that while the Eagles increased their kill totals off spikes as the matches went on, they didn’t consistently do so against either the Tigers or Trailblazers. “To win you need to get at least 14 kills to win the game,” McWilliams said.
This weekend’s trip to San Angelo took the place of the Pecos Canatloupe Classic Tournament for the Eagles, because not enough teams were entered in the Pecos Tournament at the varsity level. The Eagles’ junior varsity and freshman teams will still play in Pecos this weekend.
The varsity is entered in the Blue Division of the tournament, and their first match will be at 10 a.m. on Friday at San Angelo Lake View against Odessa Permian, who the Eagles edged in scrimmage play two weeks ago in Monahans. A win would put Pecos into a 1 p.m. match against Alpine or Miles, while the losers will face each other in a consolation match at 3 p.m. Alpine faces Lubbock Monterey and Taylor takes on El Paso Eastwood in the other half of the Blue Division bracket.
The tournament has five divisions and 40 teams entered. The top two finishers from each bracket advance to the championship (Gold Division) bracket on Saturday morning at San Angelo Central. Lake View will host the first consolation bracket (Silver Division) for the third and fourth place teams, and there will be two other consolation brackets for the tournament’s remaining 24 teams on Saturday.
District rivals Fort Stockton and Fabens also are entered in the tournament, along with possible playoff rivals in Monahans, Andrews, Lamesa, Sweetwater and Seminole.
This weekend’s matches are the mid-point of the Eagles’ three-week excursion across West Texas. After eight matches in eight days in El Paso, Pecos will have a trip next Tuesday to Sweetwater to face the Mustangs, followed by another 200-mile drive Labor Day weekend to Frenship for tournament play. District 4-3A play starts for the Eagles the following weekend, at home against the Clint Lions.
Pecos-Greenwood scrimmage going by clock
The Pecos Eagles’ football scrimmage Thursday night against Greenwood was scheduled to be a timed scrimmage in all senses of the word, according to Eagles’ head coach Chris Henson.
Pecos and Greenwood were to play freshmen, junior varsity and varsity scrimmages starting with the ninth graders at 5 p.m. in Greenwood, and Henson said the teams would go by their watches for the first part of the scrimmage, and then finish things off going by the scoreboard clock in the varsity game.
“We’ll go 10-10-10-10 on the plays until the hour’s up with the freshmen, and we’ll do the same with the JV,” Henson said. “The varsity will go 15 plays alternating for one hour, and then we’ll play a 12-minute quarter.”
The Eagles will be mainly looking to improve their defensive effort from last Saturday’s opening scrimmage against Seminole, when the Indians scored three times apiece with both their first and second-team units. Pecos’ only score was with their first team squad, on a 43-yard pass from Paul Zubeldia to Luis Morales, but were stopped on the goal line on downs on another drive while Morales drew an interference call on a pass from Zubeldia.
Henson said Pecos will have a couple of players back who missed last Saturday’s scrimmage against Seminole, but said a number of varsity and JV players missed workouts on Monday. All the players were at workouts on Wednesday for the Eagles, which was also picture day for the varsity, JV and freshmen squads.
Greenwood won last year’s scrimmage by a 3-1 score, and will be featuring a number of new faces on offense this season. Their top returning player offensively is running back Blake McCullough, who ran for 336 yards and caught 13 passes for another 225 yards in 2007, when the Rangers went 6-4 and placed third in District 3-3A before falling to Seminole in the area round of the playoffs.
Regular season play for the Eagles opens next Friday night in Alpine against the Bucks. The Eagles’ home opener is on Sept. 5, when Kermit comes to Pecos.
Four Pecos sub-varsity squads playing in Cantaloupe tourney
The Pecos Eagles will have two teams apiece in the varsity and junior varsity divisions of the Pecos Cantaloupe Classic Tournament this Friday and Saturday at the Pecos High School gym, even though the Eagles’ varsity will be 200 miles away in San Angelo.
A lack of varsity entries in this year’s tournament led coach Ruth McWilliams to have the varsity travel to San Angelo this weekend. Pecos’ JV will take their place, while a late withdrawal from the tournament by Kermit resulted in Pecos adding a second team to that bracket.
The purple JV team will face Van Horn on Friday at 9 a.m., while the gold JV team will take on Odessa High’s JV at 10:30 a.m. The winners and losers will meet at 12 noon, with the final matches of the day to determine Saturday’s seedings will be at 3 and 4:30 p.m. Odessa Permian’s JV takes on Marfa and Sierra Blanca faces Presidio in the other matches in the bracket.
The Eagles’ freshmen teams will be in the tournament’s JV bracket, which will play its early matches on Friday at the Crockett Middle School and old Pecos High School gyms. The purple team will play OHS’ sophomore squad at Crockett at 9 a.m., followed by the gold team against Presidio’s JV at 10:30. The other two matches will have Permian’s sophomores against Fort Davis’ JV at 9 and Presidio’s freshmen against Marfa’s JV at 10:30 a.m.
On Tuesday in El Paso, the JV Eagles lost their matches to El Paso High by 25-18, 25-23 scores, and fell to El Paso Americas, 25-21, 22-25, 25-23. The ninth grade Eagles lost both their matches in three games, falling to El Paso High 25-20, 23-25, 25-18, and were beaten by Americas, 15-25, 26-24, 25-15.
A story in Monday’s Enterprise incorrectly stated that Pecos lost the consolation final to Plains in the Oil Patch Classic at Wink last Saturday. The JV Eagles beat Plains on Saturday, 25-22, 25-14, after an earlier win in pool play by 25-8, 25-17 scores. The JV lost on Friday to Kermit, 25-18, 25-11, and to Midland Christian, 25-7, 25-17, while on Saturday they lost to Jal, 25-14, 25-22, then defeated Imperial-Buena Vista, 25-12, 25-9, and Midland Trinity, 21-25, 25-21, 27-25, before beating Plains.
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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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