SPORTS
Bowie softball lights it up
In their final tournament of the season, the Bowie Lady Rabbits softball team had a winning record at Iowa Park last week.
The Lady Rabbits went 3-2 during three days of games, winning in dominating fashion while also being challenged.
The Bowie team did not start the tournament well. The Lady Rabbits played Archer City and lost in frustrating fashion. No Bowie pitcher could find the strike zone. The Lady Rabbits walked 12 Lady Cat batters and hit seven batters during four innings.
Despite only giving up three hits and committing only one fielding error, Archer City still scored 12 runs.
On offense, Bowie had trouble stringing hits together or finding its way on base in any other way. The Lady Cats would go on to win 12-0.
Highlights included extra base hits from Jasmine Jones and Season Eudey.
The Lady Rabbits had nowhere to go but up. Facing Rider next, Bowie bounced back to win in five innings 13-5, scoring at least one run in every inning on offense.
Kyle Fleming led the team with three RBIs while Jayci Logan and Kenzi Short each drove in two. The team had six extra base hits and stole 13 bases, led by Hannah Love swiping three bases.
The next day started bad again for Bowie. Petrolia hit all over the Lady Rabbits, scoring eight runs in the first inning and never looking back. Bowie did good to recover, giving up only one more run in the next three innings, but unfortunately its offense failed to get anything going.
The Lady Rabbits had four hits, with one being an extra base hit from Season Eudey, and failed to draw any walks. Bowie would lose 9-0 to the Lady Pirates.
The Lady Rabbits came into the final day on Saturday looking to finish the tournament strong. Playing a tough game against Tascosa, the teams exchanged runs the entire game.
The Lady Rebels had the lead for most of the game, up 8-3 heading into the bottom of the third inning. Bowie would tie the game the next two innings where the score would stay until Tascosa scored one run in the sixth inning to take a 9-8 lead.
The Lady Rabbits rallied in the final inning, drawing two walks with one out before an RBI single by Love tied the game. With runners in scoring position and only one put, the Lady Rebels allowed a pitch to get by the catcher, allowing Addie Farris to score the winning run on a passed ball. Bowie won 10-9.
Highlights included Jones hitting a three-run home run in the fourth inning to initially tie the game up. She finished with a team high four RBIs. Kenzi Short had two doubles in the game and Jayci Logan had a team high three steals to go with the team’s eight for the game.
The final game of the tournament against Seymour turned out to be a fun one. Both teams were scoring runs in bunches and the Lady Panthers actually led 7-6 after two innings.
Bowie would more than double its run total in the third inning and take over from there. The Lady Rabbits would score three runs or more in five of the six innings in the game while their defense shut Seymour out from the fourth inning on. Bowie would win big 21-9.
Highlights included Gracie Bently driving in a team high four RBIs, including a home run a two doubles.
Logan drove in four runs as well as hitting two doubles. Jones hit her second home run of the day as she drove in three runners.
Holzer only allowed one walk while striking out five batters in four innings of work while the defense had two fielding errors.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.
On the Thursday the final Lone Star Cup standings were released for the 2023-2024 school year.
Montague County had two schools that finished among the top 25 in their classification.
Nocona finished tied for 13th place in 2A while Saint Jo was tied for 24th place in 1A.
It is the highest finish for Nocona ever since the Lone Star Cup started up in the late 1990s. While it is associated with and measures the overall success of a school’s athletic program, it also takes into account the school’s success in academic and other programs like band, one-act-play, robotics, etc.
Nocona scored points in volleyball, football, cheerleading, girls and boys basketball and baseball. Unfortunately, its state appearance in film did not count towards the total. It all added up to 41 points, which is the most in program history
For Saint Jo, the success of its volleyball, football, softball, baseball, girl’s and boy’s basketball teams led to 32 points.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.
The University Interscholastic League announced on Tuesday changes for the upcoming school year when it comes to playoff formatting.
For 2A-5A schools, playoff formatting for volleyball, basketball, softball, baseball and soccer will now be split up into two divisions that will model itself like the 6A football playoffs. For 1A schools, this will only be applied for basketball. In all, there will be 12 state champions in those sports now.
This means there will be two playoff divisions within every classification. Districts will stay the same and not be affected. Four teams from every district will still make the playoffs, but now the two biggest schools of the four will play in the bracket with the other bigger schools while the two smaller schools will play in the other bracket.
This will not be like 1A-5A football, where divisions are hard cut by enrollment numbers and district alignments are set up with this in mind. Some districts that feature schools with low enrollment numbers within a classification will have to send two schools to compete in the big school bracket.
At lower levels, it might still set up a scenario where a team faces a school with twice the enrollment numbers. The thought process is it should happen less.
With fewer teams in the playoff bracket, certain parts of the playoffs like the area round and the regional tournament will not be featured as there will be less games to play on the way to the state tournament.
While the announcement was surprising to some, other coaches said they first heard about it at the basketball state tournament. UIL polled coaches, who were reportedly all for the change according to Nocona athletic director Blake Crutsinger.
For some schools, the changes will not mean much besides fewer games. Bowie is in that spot. With an enrollment number of 493, only Vernon and Iowa Park are the schools in its district that are bigger and would have to finish at the top two spots in the standings in order for Bowie teams to play in the smaller bracket.
For other schools, the change could be a big deal. Nocona’s enrollment of 234 is only 20 short of the 2A limit. The Indians will most likely play in the bigger bracket in every sport.
The Lady Indians basketball team finished as runners-up at state this year and will return four of their five starters. The teams that have beaten them the last two years, Martin’s Mill and Lipan along with several other 2A basketball powers have low enrollment numbers and would probably be in the smaller school bracket.
For 1A schools, the change is welcome but the fact volleyball was not included was sad to see for some coaches. From a numbers perspective, there are almost twice as many schools that offer basketball (213) than volleyball (123) in 1A.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.
These girls were all around winners at the June 8 Montague County 4H Horse Club show. High Point buckle winners were Emersyn Denoon and Laney Dyer, reserve all around halter winners were Kenzi McEwen and Audrey DeMore.
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