SPORTS
COACHING MOVES: Jones tabbed to lead Nocona baseball
By ERIC VICCARO
sports@bowienewsonline.com
Casey Jones will be experiencing several firsts in the coming months.
First, Jones and his wife, Katie, are awaiting the birth of their first child – with a due date of Aug. 14.
And taking over the reins of the Nocona High School baseball team will mark Casey’s first head coaching job.
“Casey grew up around the game of baseball,” said Frisco Independence head baseball coach Stacy Largent. “His dad (Chris) was a head baseball coach, and he comes from a good lineage. I think he’s good at developing players and he’s great with kids.”
Jones was an assistant coach under Largent for the past three seasons. The Knights finished the 2016 season with a 6-9 record in District 5A-13, losing a play-in game versus Frisco Reedy for fourth place and a playoff spot.
“I like the type of community Nocona is,” Jones said. “Frisco is so big. So, I like the smallness of it. I think it’s an attractive place to raise a family.”
Jones also will mentor wide receivers and cornerbacks for Nocona football, and he’ll be a middle school basketball coach. In the classroom, Casey will serve as a high school history teacher.
Before his time at Frisco Independence, Jones spent six years as an assistant coach at Decatur – which is Casey’s alma mater. Read more in the June 24 Bowie News.
Casey Jones was most recently a teacher and assistant baseball coach at Conference 5A Frisco Independence. (Courtesy photo by Frisco ISD)
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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