SPORTS
STORM CENTER: College football opens
And so it begins. The college football season is upon us, and you could tell that just by looking at the Pigskin Picks contest from earlier this week.
Your slate of games features many of the most-talked about match-ups heading into the opening week.
And Week One games are already in the books, having taken place on Thursday.
Locally, Midwestern State University football opens the season on the road at 7 p.m. on Sept. 3.
Who’s the opponent? Truman State, which is based in Kirksville, Mo. This school was once known as Northeast Missouri State until changing its name to honor former United States president Harry S. Truman.
Midwestern State has some degree of expectation this season. After all, the Mustangs came in ranked 14th in the American Football Coaches’ Association preseason Division II poll.
MSU lost only two games last season, and head coach Bill Maskill has the team primed for another successful campaign.
The biggest question in my mind is who replaces Marqui Christian as the leader of the defense now that Christian is playing for the Arizona Cardinals.
The Mustangs should field one of the deepest groups of wide receivers at the Div. II level in the entire country.
Here’s a group of famous alumni from Truman State, basketball Hall of Famer Harry Gallatin, boxer Ken Norton, former major league baseball pitcher Al Nipper and Glenn Jacobs. Yes, that Glenn Jacobs who plays Kane on WWE programming.
The hype machine is already cranking out that this will supposedly be “the greatest opening weekend in college football history.”
Preseason No. 1 Alabama will be facing No. 20 USC at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. Amazingly enough, the Crimson Tide are currently a double-digit favorite to win the game.
Is that how great the chasm is between the elites and mid-tier teams today? I’m just wondering about that out loud. Read more from this column in the Sept. 3 Bowie News.
Editor’s Note: The Storm Center column is the expressed written views of sports editor Eric Viccaro and not The Bowie News.
AT&T Stadium will be the site of tonight’s opening college football game between the University of Alabama and USC. Alabama is the top-ranked team in the country again. (Courtesy photo by James Smith/The Dallas Cowboys)
Prairie Valley
The Prairie Valley Bulldogs had a good final non-district warm-up on Friday at home against Ector.
The Eagles beat the Bulldogs 69-63 in a game where Prairie Valley was trying to play catch up all the way through.
The Bulldogs were coming off a tough tournament at Electra the previous week to try and knock the holiday rust off. Prairie Valley was familiar with Ector, having played the team to start its season back in early November and was hoping to compete better than it did in that first game.
The Eagles came out firing, splashing five 3-pointers, including several deep ones, to go out to a 21-8 lead in the first quarter. Even with the Bulldogs changing out of their preferred zone defense, the 3-pointers continued a bit and opened things up inside the arc.
Thankfully, Prairie Valley’s offense came alive in the second quarter, scoring 18 points and cutting the lead down to 38-26 at halftime.
The third quarter was more of the same, though a different player for Ector started to get hot from beyond the arc. Even as the Bulldogs were able to keep up their offensive production from the second quarter, they could not break through and cut the game to single-digits, trailing 54-42 heading into the final period.
The fourth quarter saw Prairie Valley break through to cut it the lead to single-digits, but just not close enough. Every time the Bulldogs were on the cusp of making it a one or two basket game, the Eagles would make a shot to keep that distance.
In the end, the final score was the closest Prairie Valley got as Ector won 69-63.
Nocona
The Nocona Indians bounced back with a competitive district win at Petrolia on Friday.
The Indians won 60-53 against the Pirates in a game where the middle quarters took drastic swings in momentum.
Nocona was coming off its first district loss against Windthorst as the team sat a 1-1 district record.
Petrolia came into the game at 0-1, but had a bit more time to prepare for the game.
The first quarter was competitive, but the Indians were able to get to the free throw line at will and led 16-11.
Then Nocona’s pressure defense turned up its intensity in the second quarter.
“Our pressure seemed to disrupt them and we were able to get out in transition after forcing turnovers,” Coach Brody Wilson said.
Nocona scored 25 points and led 41-25 at halftime.
Unfortunately, that intensity did not keep up at the start of the third quarter for Nocona.
The Indians took their foot off the gas a little bit which allowed Petrolia’s offense to get back into the game and make up some of the deficit.
The Pirates outscored Nocona 15-7 and trailed only 48-40 heading into the final period.
Thankfully, the Indians bounced back and competed a bit better in the fourth quarter. Nocona was able to keep offensive pace to keep Petrolia at a bit of a distance instead of making it a one score game.
The Indians held on to win 60-53.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly Bowie News.
For more pictures from the Prairie Valley game, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6871971&T=1
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