SPORTS
Bowie hires Mandrell as new athletic director
Bowie made it official Thursday morning at a school board meeting. Among other important hires, the district agreed on Cory Mandrell to be the new athletic director/head football coach of the Bowie High School Jackrabbits.
Mandrell has spent the past three years at his alma mater Snyder in the same position. After a rough first two years, the Tigers went 8-3 and made the playoffs this past season.
Before that Mandrell was offensive coordinator at Denison High School for five years. His first stint at Snyder lasted seven years, the last six of which he was offensive coordinator. Mandrell’s first stop was coaching at Lubbock High School.
Mandrell was interested in moving closer to his sons, who go to school in Denison. He is married to his wife Morganne and has four boys and one girl.
“It was a good family move for us,” Mandrell said. “For my wife’s family and I have three boys that go to Denison. It gets us closer to them. That’s really what first caught our eye.”
After looking into the district and town, Mandrell said he saw no red flags or problems and went after the job. Superintendent Blake Enlow said his approach and vision for the program stood out.
“He is very positive,” Enlow said. “He has a detailed plan for his programs. He focuses on all sports and wants to support non-athletic programs as well. He is very focused on student-athletes being involved in the community. Those are just a few things that stood out.”
As a football coach, Mandrell comes from an offensive background after serving so many years as offensive coordinators. He is not married to one offensive philosophy or certain formations, looking to get the most out of the existing talent by focusing on what they are good at.
As an athletic director, Mandrell knows there is still more to learn about the job and looks forward to the challenge of trying to make teams excel.
“Being an athletic director, you realize all these other sports are important too,” Mandrell said. “Those coaches think their sport is the most important and that’s good. You have to find a way to balance that out and make sure all the sports are taken care of and feel equally important.”
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.
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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