SPORTS
Bowie teen joins FC Dallas ECNL Regional team
A Bowie teen is advancing up the youth soccer totem pole after making it onto a prestigious club team.
Zac Ivy, the 14-year-old son of Chanda and Steve Ivy, aced a tryout for the FC Dallas 15U Club playing in the Elite Clubs National League on the regional level as the team’s lone goalie.
The ECNL is considered to be a higher level of play, with a more rigorous schedule and higher level of talent.
Ivy has been playing soccer since he was three years old, getting his start playing in the Montague County League at Pelhelm Park.
When he was scoring too much in games, his coach would put him in goal so he would not run up the score and give other kids a chance which is where he first fell in love with the challenge and pressure of being the goalie.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Zac said. “It’s fun. Sometimes I don’t like it since it’s a lot of pressure. If you mess up, it’s kind of tough, but I don’t know. It’s just fun. It’s something different than playing out on the field.”
The player he most looks up to at the professional level is longtime Mexican National Team goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa.
Chanda wanted her kids to try a lot of different things growing up so Zac spent time playing baseball, spent 11 years taking dance, still practices piano and tried basketball of course because he lives in Bowie.
As he has gotten older and it became apparent Zac’s passion was soccer, the family has had to look outside the county for more opportunities for him to play. He played for the Wise County team in Decatur, in Wichita Falls and currently plays for an indoor soccer league first in Keller and not Carrollton.
In recent years he has come back to Bowie to play on a travel team coached by Chad Word, which set up the scenario where he has had to play against his old team in Decatur.
The original date for the tryouts for the FC Dallas Youth teams were in early July, but the family was not aware of them at the time.
The coach of the team, David Hoffman, who also has coached at the University of Dallas contacted them in late July for a tryout since the team’s most recent goalie got a position in Australia.
Usually, Hoffman told them he needs about three practices to get a feel for a player before he can make a call of whether they are on the team. After the first practice, Hoffman informed Ivy he was on the team.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.
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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