SPORTS
STORM CENTER: Texas plays classic with Toronto
Wednesday wasn’t the easiest sports day for me – well, from a fan perspective that is.
My first priority was to cover the District 1A-21 cross country meet at Twisted Oaks Golf Club near Amon G. Carter Lake.
That meant only casually glancing to check the score from Game Five of the American League Championship Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers.
Interestingly enough, junior high school awards were presented just as the seventh inning was about to begin.
Yes, that seventh inning – which spanned 53 minutes inside Rogers Centre, the building formerly known as the SkyDome.
Toronto Blue Jay Jose Bautista said the only time he experienced a seventh inning like that was in winter ball.
The seventh inning had everything a baseball fan could ask for; it was like going to one of the many buffet lines at the Golden Corral.
It was the greatest seventh inning I never saw live – only with accounts through Major League Baseball’s gameday scoreboard service and the radio. I later saw highlights and cobbled together some notes for this piece.
There were questionable umpiring decisions, a benches-clearing incident, errors aplenty, and Bautista’s bat flip heard around the world.
Yes, I became a Blue Jays fan this season, and that’s because Toronto general manager Alex Anthopolous traded for third baseman Josh Donaldson.
Donaldson is my favorite current player in baseball, and he plays the game like my favorite third baseman all time in Michael Jack Schmidt of the 548 home runs and Hall of Fame career.
I know you Rangers are dealing with heartbreak, and I can say I have been there, too. After all, I grew up in Connecticut rooting for the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Phillies have lost the most games in major league baseball, with more than 10,000 of them. They lost several times in the National League Championship Series.
Philadelphia lost to Baltimore in the 1983 World Series after winning the first game. The Phillies lost to the Blue Jays in 1993 as Joe Carter smacked an epic home run off reliever Mitch Williams in Game Six. Read more of this column in the weekend edition of The Bowie News.
Editor’s Note: The Storm Center column is the expressed written views of sports editor Eric Viccaro and not The Bowie News.
Texas Rangers. (Graphic provided by the team and Major League Baseball, used with permission)
Bowie had six players play in the Maskat Shrine Oil Bowl football all-star game. For pictures from not just the football game, but the basketball and volleyball games as well that feature athletes from Bowie, Nocona and Saint Jo, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6875584&T=1
Nocona is welcoming back Coach Sandy Langford, former coach and alumnus for the Lady Indians, as its new volleyball head coach.
Langford comes back to Nocona after spending the past 11 years leading the Glen Rose volleyball program.
Her circumstances with her family allowed her to jump at the opportunity once she became aware the position at Nocona was available.
“My youngest graduated and is playing football at Midwestern (State University),” Langford said. “All of our family is here and I knew that Coach Kara (Lucherk) was leaving. We were eventually going to retire here. Our oldest son plays college football at West Texas A&M and we’ll be two hours closer to him as well.”
She again will lead the Lady Indians volleyball program, one that she led all the way to the state title game in 2011, which is the farthest the volleyball program has ever gone in its prestigious history.
Langford kept up that level of success during her 11 years at the bigger 4A Glen Rose. She won less than 20 games only twice during her time, winning her 500th career game back in 2023. Her teams were ranked among the top 10 in the state five times and Langford led Glen Rose to the state tournament in 2017, the best finish in program history.
With the Lady Indians also having its own string of success, appearing in back-to-back regional finals while finishing atop the district standings both years, Langford is excited to not just keep the success going, but shoot for the stars.
“We are not expecting anything less than a state championship,” Langford said.
She has stacked the non-district schedule with strong, state-ranked 3A and 4A teams as well as big tournaments that will test Nocona’s mettle early next season in the hopes it will prepare them for a long playoff run.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly edition of the Bowie News.
The Red River High School Bass Club competed this past weekend, May 31 – June 1, at the State Tournament on Lake Conroe for the two-day tournament.
Two of the teams from Montague County traveled south to try their best at the culmination of the year for the state title. Teams were able to pre-fish on Friday before the Saturday and Sunday competition. On Friday, there was a flipping contest for the youth and Cooper Johnson won third overall and won a $500 scholarship and an Academy gift card.
The club’s two teams who competed were Lane Smith/Colt Henry with boat captain Jimmy Smith. The team placed 63rd with a total of 16.22 pounds. The second team of Cooper Johnson/Corbyn Patton and boat captain Jayson Toerck placed 169th with a total weight of 2.29 pounds.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly edition of the Bowie News.
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