Bowie and Nocona cross country runners ran the first official race of the season on Wednesday at Nocona’s Indian Oaks Golf Course.
The Bowie boy’s team finished third overall while its girl’s team, the first in three seasons, finished fourth overall. The Nocona boy’s team finished seventh overall while the girl’s team had only one runner compete.
It proved to be a very fast course as many runners ran some of their best times by quite a bit. Whether that proves to be an anomaly or not will show in future meets.
From the Jackrabbit boy team, Isaac Renteria finished first for the team. He ended up getting second place overall with a time of 15:37.
The top five runners that scored for Bowie also included Sebastian Martinez (10th), Monte Mayfield (25th), Russell Anderson (28th) and Hayden Sutton (33rd).
The Lady Rabbits’ team was led by freshman Laney Segura, who finished seventh overall with a time of 13:29.
The team’s top five runners also included Ollie Gaston (13th), Brylie Hager (27th), Bella Lozano (31st) and Brilee Lemons (51st).
For the Nocona girls, Bayler Smith ran alone and finished fourth overall with a time of 13:14.
The Indian boy’s team was led by Freddy Duran who finished 14th overall with a time of 17:27. The top five for the team also included Andrew Perez (15th), Omar Salinas (41st), Emilio Rocha (46th) and Corbyn Patton (49th).

To see times for all Bowie and Nocona cross country runners who completed the race, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News. To see more pictures from the meet, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6865522&T=1

Prairie Valley
The Prairie Valley Lady Bulldogs took down 3A Whitesboro’s JV team at home on Tuesday night.
The Lady Bulldogs won 2-0, with the second set being more competitive after easily winning the first set.
Prairie Valley was coming off a second place finish at its first tournament in Electra. With an experienced core of seniors, the team has started the season well.
The first 10 points were neck and neck, but once the Lady Bulldogs started rolling the Whitesboro JV team collapsed. A string of hot serving and solid play allowed Prairie Valley to win dominantly 25-9.
With a set in the can, Coach Belinda Lloyd started focusing on getting some of her lesser experienced players into the game in certain situations.
Initially the Lady Bulldogs fell behind 7-3, but quickly came back to tie the score up at 10-10 and 15-15. Despite the competitive back and forth, it always felt like Prairie Valley was going to get its stuff together when it counted.
Nursing a 21-19 lead in the final stretch, the Lady Bulldogs closed on a 4-1 run to win the set 25-20 and the match 2-0. With the match being against a JV team, it was only a best of three instead of the usual best of five.

Nocona
The Nocona Lady Indians hosted Iowa Park on Tuesday and won a competitive match.
The Lady Indians won 3-1 as the middle sets proved to be the tightest part of the game.
Coming off a second place finish in the silver bracket at its last tournament, Nocona was hoping to pick up a win heading into their hosted tournament this weekend.
The first set went the Lady Indians way as they won 25-18. The second set went into extra points and the Lady Hawks won the set 28-26 to tie the match at 1-1.
The third set was another competitive one, but Nocona took it 25-22 to go up 2-1. Not wanting to give Iowa Park hope for a come back to force a fifth set, the Lady Indians won the fourth set in convincing fashion 25-15 to seal up the match 3-1.

Saint Jo
The Saint Jo Lady Panthers came up just short of pulling off a comeback in a match at Garner on Tuesday night.
The Lady Longhorns won the fifth and final set to close out the match 3-2, but not before the Lady Panthers won the previous two to get the game to that point.
The first two sets were neck and neck throughout. The type where neither team looked like the better one except the scoreboard demanded that one be declared the winner.
Garner won both sets by the smallest of margins 26-24 and 25-23 to go up 2-0.
A lot of teams would have folded after coming up just short not just once, but twice. Instead, Saint Jo buckled down and started to grind back.
The third set proved almost as close as the first two. In the end, the Lady Panthers were able to close out the set more definitively and won 25-22.
The fourth set saw Saint Jo get the lead and never let it go as it pulled away for the first time in the match. The Lady Panthers won 25-19 to tie the score at 2-2 and force a fifth and final set.
Fifth sets are a different beast than the rest of the match comes before it. Even with all of the momentum Saint Jo had coming in, that was thrown out the window entering set five.
With it being the first to 15 instead of 25, every scored point and every lead feels multiplied.
It was close, but Garner pulled out the win in set five 15-11 to be named the victors 3-2.

Forestburg
The Forestburg Lady Horns had to rework themselves on the fly in their match at Sacred Heart on Tuesday.
The Lady Tigers won 3-1 against the Lady Horns, but with the circumstances Forestburg would take that result.
It was the first game for Forestburg following two players quitting the team and another that was out for the game due to family issues.
The Lady Horns did come out and probably surprised everyone, including themselves, by taking the first set 25-18. Unfortunately the good times did not last forever.
Sacred Heart won the next three sets 25-19, 25-22 and 25-17. Ultimately, more work is still needed to be done with Forestburg’s new lineup.

Missing scores
The Bowie News did not receive scores from Bellevue and Bowie. Gold-Burg did not have a game earlier this week.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News. To see pictures from the Prairie Valley match, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6865521&T=1

The Gold-Burg Bears lost their opening game of the season on Thursday night at Perrin-Whitt.
The Pirates seemed to stun the Bears, winning by mercy rule 46-0 early in the third quarter.
Gold-Burg came into the game with confidence. The Bears had blown out Perrin-Whitt the previous season 64-16. Despite graduating some foundational players from that team, enough of the core remained for the feeling to be that the result would be similar enough.
It started from the kickoff as Gold-Burg got the ball deep in its own territory. The Bears’ attempts to move the ball were muted and they were stopped on fourth down at their own 22 yard line.
Gold-Burg’s defense was doing an admirable early job of trying to make the Pirates earn it by bottling up sweeps near its goal line.
Unfortunately, a bust in coverage on a play-action rollout left someone wide open for a nine-yard touchdown pass. Perrin-Whitt made the extra point and led 8-0.
The Bears next offensive possession saw their most explosive play of the game happen as Jayton Epperson connected with Keelyn Case on a juggling contested catch near the Pirates’ goal line.
Unfortunately, the Gold-Burg offense stalled out after four downs and turned the ball over to Perrin-Whitt, backed up at its own nine yard-line.
The Pirates got some rhythm going running the football with sweeps and counters to the outside as they marched down the field. Eventually, Perrin-Whitt’s running back got lose on the sideline for a 19-yard touchdown to go up 16-0.
Right as everything seemed to be going horribly wrong for the Bears as the first quarter winded down, it was punctuated by the Pirates recovering the ensuing onside kick to get the ball back and assistant coach Seth McMinn getting stung by a wasp on his finger.
The second quarter was not any better. Perrin-Whitt quickly scored as momentum and fatigue seemed to be getting to Gold-Burg’s defense. The Pirates scored on a nine-yard run to go up 24-0.
Despite a good kick-off return for the Bears, the next drive was stalled out near midfield as Gold-Burg just could not get much of anything going.
Perrin-Whitt then had its most explosive play of the game so far as its running back got loose for a 34-yard run to go up 32-0.
As the game went on, several Bear players started to go down with injuries, serious enough to be out the rest of the game, especially considering how it was going.
The Bears responded with their best drive of the game as they methodically drove down the field, mixing in tough running with some short passes that kept the chains moving which had been a struggle all game.
Driving down near the Pirates goal line, unfortunately Gold-Burg’s offense stalled out again. Perrin-Whitt’s defense forced another turnover on downs, but the Pirates were truly backed up.
A penalty backed up Perrin-Whitt a little more and the Bears were a bit more aggressive trying to force a negative play.
The Pirates responded with a quick pass that the receiver took the rest of the way, with a teammate out in front to block, for a 74-yard touchdown pass. Perrin-Whitt led 40-0.
With less than two minutes left before halftime, Gold-Burg knew it was the last chance it had to try and score.
With the Pirates getting the ball after halftime and the defense not being able to get a stop so far in the game, the end of the game was in the hands of the Bears offense to try and prevent this game from ending.
Gold-Burg frantically moved the ball down the field to give itself a chance, with some big plays from Paul Jones and Zander Crawford along with quarterback Levi Hellinger when he connected with Paul Allen.
Unfortunately, the Bears ran out of time before halftime.
The second half saw the Pirates receive the kickoff and Gold-Burg came out with a lot of energy from its players that the game could still be turned around with a stop from its defense.
The Bears defense stifled the sweeps that had killed them in the second quarter, but Perrin-Whitt still drove to Gold-Burg’s 15 yard line.
On a pass play the Bears defense had covered well, the Pirate player scrambled from one side of the field to the other before finding room to score on a 15-yard touchdown run that ended the game.
Perrin-Whitt won 46-0.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News. To see more pictures from the game, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6865525&T=1