SPORTS
Lady Bulldogs season ends
The Prairie Valley Lady Bulldogs season came to an end on Tuesday night in a way that was a heartbreaker.
District foe Bryson won the match 3-2 in a game where the winner would go to the regional tournament. The Cowgirls also pulled a come back at the Lady Bulldogs expense to do it.
Prairie Valley came into the match with plenty of recent history with Bryson. The two have been in the same district the last two seasons. Last year the team’s split their district games and were co-district champions before playing a third time to for the one seed where the Cowgirls won.
This year, the Lady Bulldogs were dealing with injuries to start off district play and lost at Bryson the first time around in straight sets.
The second matchup saw a healthier Prairie Valley team take the Cowgirls to five sets where Bryson pulled off the win.
That match was several weeks ago and the Lady Bulldogs were at full strength, coming off several dominating playoff performances and looking to pull off an upset against a familiar opponent.
The match did not start well for Prairie Valley in the first set. The Cowgirls serving allowed them to build an early 7-3 lead. The Lady Bulldogs cleaned up their serve receive and played solid the rest of the set.
This allowed them to slowly catch up to a Bryson team that was making several hitting errors every time it was trying to be aggressive.
Down 14-11, Prairie Valley went on an 11-2 run that built its lead to 22-16. Despite the Cowgirls turning things around in the final few points, the Lady Bulldogs held on to win 25-21 and take the early lead.
The start of the second set was more competitive, but Prairie Valley slowly built up its lead. The Lady Bulldogs won five straight five-point exchanges 3-2 as the score was 15-10.
Bryson came back to tie the score at 18-18 and the two teams played point-to-point for the next six points. Still tied at 21-21, Prairie Valley went on a 3-0 run to set up set point 24-21.
The Cowgirls won the next two points to make the score 24-23 before the Lady Bulldogs were able to win the next point, winning the set 25-23 and take a 2-0 lead.
While Prairie Valley had held on to win the previous set at the end, Bryson had started to clean up the myriad of hitting errors in its comeback attempt that was giving the Lady Bulldogs points at the end of long rallies.
Prairie Valley had played well so far and had mostly profited off of the Cowgirl errors and some good placed tips at the net.
The third set never saw the Lady Bulldogs get into the set. Their serve-receive had only had a few moments of shakiness in the first and second set, but the opening points of the third set saw the team struggle bad.
Down 5-0, the team played the next 10 points even with the score 10-5. After that Bryson ran away with the set as the lead grew bigger and bigger.
The margin was its biggest with Prairie Valley down 21-9, but the team won some points late to make the final score 25-14 not quite as bad. The Cowgirls cut the lead to 2-1.
The Lady Bulldogs would have to shake off the sour taste of the third set if there was any chance of it not bleeding over into the fourth set. Unfortunately, it did at the start.
Bryson led 10-5 and 15 points later led 19-11 and was looking like it was going to waltz into the fifth set with ease.
Prairie Valley made a furious comeback. The Lady Bulldogs went 8-2 to cut the lead to 21-19 before the Cowgirls called a time out thanks to some good serving and solid play like they had been playing in the first two sets.
Following the time out however, Bryson played like a different team on a mission. The Cowgirls not only broke the next serve, but closed out the set by winning the next four points to make it 25-19. The score was tied at 2-2.
Despite Prairie Valley not playing great in the last two sets, a fifth set in a high pressure match changes everything. Momentum does not always matter since the set is mentally different for both teams.
Played only to 15 instead of the usual 25, there are less points available therefore meaning comebacks are less likely to happen as each point carries with it more weight than any from the previous four sets. A bad start can end teams emotionally.
Unfortunately, that is what happened for the Lady Bulldogs. Bryson’s early lead grew to 9-1 and hope for a win was little to none.
Prairie Valley played the remaining points exchanging points with the Cowgirls, which was not enough to come back from the big deficit. Bryson won the set 15-6 and the match 3-2.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.
The Nocona Indians wrapped up their first playoff berth since 2005 with a dominant win against Chico on Thursday at home.
The Indians won 10-0 in four and half innings due to run-rule to earn the district’s final playoff spot and break a nearly two decade drought.
Nocona was in a similar situation last year after beating Chico in the first game before losing twice more to the Dragons, once in the regular season finale and then in the play-in series.
The Indians won the first game earlier in the week 9-4, but knew they could play better. On Thursday they then proved it.
In the bottom of the first inning, Nocona got the scoring going as Wesley Murphey hit an RBI double. Two batters later, Landon Fatheree drove in two runs with a double.
Konnor Harrington followed with a groundout that scored another run as the Indians led 4-0.
In the second inning, Nocona kept up the pressure. Brody Langford drove in a run with a single. Later with the bases loaded, Caden Belcher was hit by a pitch that scored a run. A later passed ball allowed one more run to score as the Indians extended their lead to 7-0.
Nocona got one more run in the third inning. With the bases loaded, Wesley Murphey grounded into a fielder’s choice out that scored one run to make it 8-0.
The Indians got the final two runs they needed in the fourth inning. Walker Murphey and RJ Walker hit back-to-back RBI singles to put Nocona up 10-0.
Chico needed to score at least one run to prevent the game from ending early due to run-rule. Instead Walker Murphey completed the shutout performance by retiring the next three batters to end the game and the Dragon’s season.
The Indians won 10-0 and earned the district’s final playoff spot.
Wesley Murphey and Fatheree drove in two runs each to lead the team. Walker Murphey led the team with three hits. The team finished with 11 hits and drew six walks.
Walker Murphey also allowed zero runs and one hit while striking out five batters and walking none. The defense behind him committed only one fielding error.
Coach Zach Denson was beyond proud of this team for breaking the playoff drought.
“The amount of growth that they have shown throughout the year has been the most incredible I’ve seen in 13 years of coaching,” Denson said. “We went on a little skid in the middle of the year and that could have derailed our young team, but it actually brought us closer together as a unit.”
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.
The Bowie Jackrabbits were able to clinch the final playoff spot on Thursday with a senior night home win against Henrietta.
The Jackrabbits won 6-1 in a game where all of the offensive action happened in the first three innings for both teams.
Bowie came into the game needing to win. Failing to do so would mean setting up a series with the Bearcats for the final playoff spot. If the Jackrabbits just took care of business against a team they had already beaten once pretty easily then they could avoid that whole situation.
Henrietta knew it was playing for the future of its season and struck first. A one out double followed by a single two batters later put the Bearcats up 1-0 against Bowie’s top pitcher Edmond De Leon on the mound.
The offense responded in the same inning with a two-out rally. Troy Kesey hit a single and Hayden Rodriguez drew a walk. De Leon then hit a double to drive one run in.
Cooper Hammer was then hit a by a pitch to load the bases up. Rayder Mann then drew a walk that scored one run and the Jackrabbits led 2-1 before the next batter popped up for out three.
Bowie added to that lead in the second inning. Boston Farris led off with a triple. Tucker Jones then hit a groundball to second base that resulted in an error that allowed Farris to score and make it 3-1 for the Jackrabbits.
Bowie then extended the lead in the third inning. Hammer hit a one-out single. Mann and Cy Egenbacher followed with hits that resulted in fielding errors for the Bearcats. The Jackrabbits scored one run on the second error.
Farris then hit a single that drove in another run. After a strikeout, a wild pitch then allowed another runner to score as Bowie was up 6-1. Another strikeout ended the scoring for the Jackrabbits.
The next three and half innings saw neither team score runs, though both had several chances with two runners getting on at times.
Henrietta’s best chance came in the fifth inning with two singles, but De Leon and Bowie’s defense shut that down. De Leon retired the final seven batters he faced as the Jackrabbits won 6-1.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.
Last week all of the area schools competed in their district’s tennis tournament and several schools had athletes qualify for the regional tournament.
In the end, 10 athletes finished second or better at district to move on for a chance to qualify for state.
Unfortunately, no players from Bowie were able to break through and qualify.
Many faced early seeding opponents from tennis power Vernon that ended their tournament.
The highest finish for a Bowie player was Lily Hodges who placed fourth in girls singles.
From Nocona, one girl was able to break through as Kaygan Stone finished second in girls singles to qualify for regionals.
Stone has had a tough year, dealing with shoulder problems that shortened both her volleyball and basketball seasons, but she bounced back this spring to qualify for regionals in tennis.
Her teammate Melissa Segura was not so lucky, as she finished third in girls singles and just missed the cut, having to settle for an alternate spot
At the 1A tournament, several schools had multiple athletes in one division qualify.
From Saint Jo, last year’s state qualifying girl’s doubles team of Kyler Dunn and Taylor Patrick won the division.
They beat out the second place finisher and their teammates, the girl’s doubles team of Maxey Johnson and Bailey Nobile, who also qualified for regionals.
From Gold-Burg, Jimena Garcia and Alyson Rojas placed first and second in girls singles to move on to the regional tournament.
Other schools only had one team or individual.
From Forestburg, the mixed doubles team of Jesse Wadsworth and Alli Cisneros finished second as they qualified for regionals.
From Prairie Valley, Case Carpenter finished second in the boys singles division.
To read the full story and see pictures of all of the qualifiers, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.
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