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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Wednesday, March 3, 2004
Weather bad, results good for Pecos in Seminole
The schedule probably would have been better for the Pecos Eagles' softball team if they had played the first game of their home-and-home series against the Seminole Maidens in Pecos on Tuesday.
It wasn't that Eagles, who will host Seminole on Friday, had any trouble with the Maidens on their home field Tuesday. They evened their season record at 6-6 with a 12-0 victory. But while afternoon temperatures in Pecos neared 70 degrees during the afternoon, temperatures in the South Plains never got out of the mid-40s and a light rain fell throughout most of the afternoon.
"It was cold, wet and miserable," said Eagles' assistant coach Becky Wein. "I'm not sure how many hits we had, because it was too cold to keep track."
Wein said Brittany Lobstein, Bre'Ann Windham and Stephanie Herrera had extra-base hits in the victory, which snapped a two game losing streak for the Eagles. Meanwhile, pitcher Hillary Hinojos shut down Seminole, which is only in its second year of varsity softball, and will become a member of the Eagles' district next season.
"They tried a lot of bunting. They didn't want to hit the ball because it was too cold," Wein said. The game eventually ended in the sixth inning, under the 10-run rule.
Friday's game against Seminole will be the Eagles' third time to play on their new field, but the first in which they'll play under regular game conditions. They scrimmaged Kermit and Sweetwater last month, and then opened regular season play with a pair of 55-minute time limit games against Alpine and Crane that lasted only three innings apiece.
Loboes' two-out rally foils Eagles' comeback
Getting the third out was a big problem for the Pecos Eagles baseball team Tuesday night in Monahans, which first put the Eagles in an early hole and then spoiled a late comeback from a big deficit against the Monahans Loboes.
The Eagles surrendered eight runs with two outs on Tuesday, over half of those without benefit of a Monahans hit, as the Loboes scored three times with two outs in their first at-bat and three times with two away in their final one to score a 9-6 non-district victory over the Eagles.
Larry Jasso walked with the bases loaded in the sixth inning off Eddie Vela to force home what turned out to by the winning run, while Monahans scored twice more in the inning on passed balls after Pecos had rallied from a 6-2 deficit in the top of the sixth off reliever Kevin Kenyon.
"We got the first two out, then Eddie walked the next two and we had an error," said Eagles' coach Elias Payan. "But even though we lost, I still saw us make some progress."
"Overall, the kids did a good job coming back and keeping their composure, it was just in that last inning Eddie ran out of gas," he said. "We were a lot more disciplined at the plate and there were a couple of times where we got the first two runners on with none out, and didn't score."
Monahans was able to turn a double play on a line drive behind starting pitcher Houston Stockman in the fourth inning, after the Eagles scored twice in the third to cut the Loboes' lead to 5-2, and then in the seventh after leadoff singles by Oscar Parada and Vela, Kenyon was able to get a pair of fielder's choice ground outs at third base before getting a strikeout to end the game.
In the first inning, Vela loaded the bases with one away, then got Kenyon to hit into a fielder's choice force at home, but then gave up three runs, two on T.J. Brooks' double to centerfield. The Loboes added two more runs in the second, one coming on another bases-loaded walk by Vela, who was pitching on only three days rest after losing to Big Spring last Friday.
The Eagles also did some scoring with two away, including their final three runs, as Victor Reyes singled home two runs and then scored on Jose Reyes' RBI single with two outs in the sixth to tie the game. Earlier, Jose Reyes had singled home Reyes with one out in the third against starting pitcher Houston Stockman for Pecos' first run, while the Eagles' second run came when Dimas Porras couldn't handle Eddie Vela's grounder to third.
"I think when we started coming back and started hitting the ball, our kids relaxed out there and didn't play as scared as we did in our other games," said Payan, whose team fell to 0-5 on the season with the loss. Monahans, which lost their season opener to Alpine, is now 1-1, as both the Loboes and Eagles go into the Monahans Sandhills Tournament starting on Thursday.
Pecos will face another District 4-3A rival, Presidio, in their opening game at 3 p.m., and will then take on either Alpine or Denver City in the quarterfinals or consolation quarterfinals, at 3 p.m. or 9 a.m. on Friday in Kermit. All six district teams are entered in the tournament, which features Fort Stockton facing Greenwood in another first round game, while Monahans hosts Big Spring and Kermit hosts Lamesa in their openers.
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
Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.
Copyright 2003 by Pecos Enterprise
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