The regional track meets started on Friday and ended on Monday due to bad weather on day two. Montague County has 14 athletes who qualified for the state meet from six different schools.
Bowie competed at the 3A region I meet at Abilene Christian University. Nocona competed at the 2A region II meet at Springtown High School. All of the 1A schools competed in the region III meet at the University of North Texas.
The Jackrabbits have Tucker Jones heading back to the state meet for the second straight year in the 110 meter hurdles. He did it dramatic fashion.
Only the top two finishers in each event automatically qualify for the state meet. The one wildcard qualifier is the best of all third place finishers in the four regions.
Jones ran a personal best time of 14.73 seconds, which was not only the fastest time out of all the third place finishers, but was just six hundredths of a second faster than fourth place runner from Peaster in his race.
At Nocona, Graci Brown qualified in three of the four events she competed at state last year. Brown won the 400 meters, finished second in the 800 meters and elected to skip the long jump this year.
She anchored the 4×400 relay along with Ava Johnson, Ayden Patton and Meg Meekins. The team finished in third place, but like Jones got the wildcard spot with its time of 4:05 to qualify for state again.
At the 1A meet, there were several athletes who qualified for state after the first day of competition due to scheduling.
From Forestburg, Brenna Briles won the high jump by clearing 5-1. Reagan Ladewig finished second in the shot put with a throw of 32-10.
From Gold-Burg, Isaac Renteria qualified for the 3200 meter race for the second straight year. He finished third with a time of 10:19, also getting the wildcard position.
From Saint Jo, Damon Byrd won the long jump and got second in the triple jump. He jumped 21-3 in the long jump and 42-5 in the triple jump.
A few days later during the the running finals, Byrd would join the 4×200 meter relay team along with Blaine Penaluna, Devin Stewart and Lee Yeley that finished second with a time 1:33 to qualify for state.
From Prairie Valley, Linzie Priddy would earn her first state track appearance by finishing second in the 800 meter race with a time of 2:33, less than a second ahead of third place from Blum.

To read the full story and also see results for all area athletes who competed at the regional meets, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.

Nocona
The Nocona Lady Indians lost a tough game at Muenster on Tuesday night.
The Lady Hornets won 13-2 after four and half innings due to run-rule, but most of the damage came in one inning for Muenster.
Nocona was coming into the game after a one-sided win against a smaller Saint Jo team, but knew it would have to play well if it wanted a chance to win.
The beginning of the game was competitive as the Lady Indians got on the board first with Skye Kirby driving in a run on a single.
The Lady Hornets loaded the bases up with no outs in the first inning, but Nocona almost got out of the jam unscathed before a passed ball and a single allowed two runs to come in and score. Muenster led 2-1 after the first inning.
The teams exchanged scoreless innings in the second and third before the Lady Hornets broke open in the game in the bottom of the fourth.
Muenster scored 11 runs on three singles, two triples, two walks, three fielding errors and a two-run home run. The Lady Hornets led 13-1.
Nocona needed to score at least three runs in the fifth inning to prevent the game from ending early due to run-rule.
The Lady Indians leadoff batter A Sutton got on base by drawing a walk. She got moved to second base on a groundout and later went to third base on a passed ball.
Heidi Atteberry then grounded out, but it was enough to get Sutton home for a run.
It looked like Nocona would score more as Shelby Sewell hit a single to get on base.
Avery Crutsinger hit a groundball that resulted in an error that allowed her and Sewell to advance to third and second base. Unfortunately, the next batter grounded out to end the game.
The Lady Hornets won 13-2.

Saint Jo
The Saint Jo Lady Panthers lost a high-scoring shootout at home Tuesday night against Era.
The Lady Hornets won 31-15, but the Lady Panthers avoided getting run-ruled in a game that was going their way in the beginning.
Saint Jo was ahead 8-2 after the first three innings and was playing well, until its pitchers started having deep troubles finding the strike zone.
Era scored 11 runs in the fourth inning and took a 13-8 lead and the Lady Panthers could not get the game back in control.
Too many walks and hit batters just could not keep the Lady Hornets off the board and scoring great in the final three innings.
While Saint Jo had success offensively, scoring runs in every inning in the game, it never had an explosive inning it needed to catch back up.
The Lady Panthers scored to keep the game going, trailing 13-9 after four innings, 18-12 after five and 21-13 after six.
Era then ended the game with another 10 runs in the seventh inning to make the final score worse than it was for most of it.
Saint Jo added two runs in the final inning to make the score 31-15 at the end.
Taylor Patrick, Jordyn O’Neal, Krista Reeves and Aubrey Morman each drove in two runs each to lead the team. O’Neal led the team with five hits while her, Patrick and Reagan Wilson each scored three runs each. The team finished with 16 hits in the game and drew four walks.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.

Nocona
The Nocona Indians lost in the final inning at Perrin-Whitt on Tuesday night.
The Pirates came back to score all of their runs in the seventh inning to steal a win from the Indians 3-2.
Nocona was coming off a dominant series against Saint Jo the previous week and was hoping it could further that against another 1A team.
It didn’t turn out to be the case despite the Indians leading almost the entire game.
Walker Murphey led off for Nocona and drew a walk.
An error trying to pick him off allowed him to go to second base before a sacrifice bunt moved him to third base.
Following a strikeout, Brody Langford hit a ball to left field that resulted in an error that allowed Murphey to come in and score to put the Indians up 1-0.
The next four innings were scoreless for both teams Nocona nursed its one-run lead into the sixth inning. There the Indians added to their lead.
Wesley Murphey hit a one-out double to get a runner in scoring position.
Langford came through and hit a single that drove in the base runner to put Nocona’s lead up to and feeling good 2-0.
Perrin-Whitt had a great chance to get on the board in the same inning as two singles and a hit batter loaded the bases up with only one out.
Pitcher Walker Murphey got out of the jam with a strikeout and a fly out in foul territory to keep the shutout going.
Unfortunately, that bit of momentum from the Pirates carried over into the seventh inning.
The leadoff batter got on base thanks to an error at shortstop. Two singles followed to load the bases up with no outs. The next batter then hit a bases clearing triple to end the game.
Perrin-Whitt won 3-2.

Saint Jo
The Saint Jo Panthers completed a double-header on Tuesday at Muenster and lost both games.
The Panthers lost the first game against the JV team 7-3 before losing by run-rule against the varsity team 20-1 after three and half innings.
Saint Jo was coming off tough double-header losses to Nocona the previous week and was hoping it could bounce back.
The first game against the JV Hornets team only went five innings. Muenster lead after the first inning 1-0, but the Panthers answered with one run in the third inning to tie the game.
The Hornets responded with two runs scored in the third, fourth and fifth innings.
Saint Jo added two runs in the fifth inning, but it was not enough to catch back up as it lost 7-3.
The game against the varsity team saw most of the damage come in the third inning. Muenster led 2-0 before racking up 18 runs in a third inning that would not end for Saint Jo.
The Panthers answered with one run in the fourth inning to make the final score 20-1.
Charlie Barclay got the only hit for Saint Jo in the game.
The team drew four straight walks in the final inning to score its only run in the game.

Bellevue
The Bellevue Eagles lost a tough game on Tuesday night against 2A Chico.
The Dragons won 12-0 after four and half innings due to run-rule.
Chico scored most of the runs in the first and fourth innings as Bellevue limited the Dragons to just one run in the second and third innings combined.
Chico scored four runs in the first inning and seven in the fourth inning.
Bellevue had only one base hit in the game with Bryce Ramsey hitting a single.
On defense, the team gave up 10 hits and three walks while committing three fielding errors.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.