SPORTS
Basketball Roundup
Gold-Burg boys
The Gold-Burg Bears went into the holiday break following a fun smashing of Wichita Christian at home on Monday night.
The Bears won 76-30 against the Stars where their aggressive press defense produced a layup line of breakaways throughout the whole game.
Gold-Burg was coming into the game following its opening season loss to 3A Bridgeport.
The Bears played the bigger school well despite it being the first game. It was a tight first half with the score tied at 21-21.
The second half saw the Bulls execute offensively better, especially in the fourth quarter to pull ahead by a couple of baskets down the stretch. Bridgeport won 47-40.
The aggressive press and zone defense created many fast break opportunities, but Gold-Burg was sloppy at times trying to play too fast and turned the ball over in some unforced errors.
The Stars only trailed 20-10 after the first quarter, but the Bears defense was a bit more sharper and wore down Wichita Christian even more as the game wore on.
Gold-Burg kept the fast breaking pace up for the rest of the game, scoring 20 or more points in the second and third quarters as well and only scoring 15 in the final period.
The Bears won with little drama 76-30.
Gold-Burg girls
The Gold-Burg Lady Bears had a tough matchup against Wichita Christian at home on Monday night.
The inexperienced Lady Bears lost 53-31 against a hard pressing Lady Stars team.
Gold-Burg returns only one player with varsity experience and the team had no bench players.
Playing a full-court press style team like Wichita Christian is an early season nightmare since the pace will probably be quick and will push the Lady Bears early season fitness level as much as experience handling pressure.
The Lady Stars used it to force some turnovers, but mostly made Gold-Burg pay with exploiting the holes in the Lady Bears’ zone defense.
The Lady Bears broke the press enough times to set up some offense, but were behind from the jump and trailed 34-15 at halftime.
Thankfully Wichita Christian called off its press in the second half and the game was more competitive for Gold-Burg. The Lady Stars only outscored the Lady Bears 18-16.
Unfortunately, it did nothing to make up the double-digit deficit as Wichita Christian won 52-31.
Nocona boys
The Nocona Indians had two close losses on Monday and Tuesday to send them into the holidays with things to work on.
The Indians lost to Howe 72-65 and Vernon 55-52.
Nocona came into the week after easily winning its first game of the season the previous week against Saint Jo.
The Bulldogs proved to be a tougher opponent as they jumped out to 23-15 lead after the first quarter. The pace was calmed down a bit in the second quarter, but Howe had built a double-digit lead 39-27 at halftime.
Nocona could not make up the difference and went into the fourth quarter down 15 points. Only through the Indians best offensive peak of the game did they close the distance, but the Bulldogs made enough free throws to keep them at bay.
In the end, Howe won 72-65.
Nocona then played Vernon on Tuesday afternoon.
It was the opposite of the day before as the Indians came out on fire in the first half, scoring 21 points in the first quarter and leading 35-28.
Nocona scored less than double-digits in both the third and fourth quarters. The Lions kept up the same scoring pace they had in the first half which allowed them to make up the deficit.
The score was tied at 44-44 heading into the fourth quarter. Vernon got a big boost from its leading scorer Adarius Williams scoring seven of his team high 20 points in the fourth quarter.
Nocona’s only scorer in the final period was Stone who scored eight of his team high 20 points in the fourth.
The Lions won 55-52.
Forestburg
The Forestburg Lady Horns were runners up at their first tournament last weekend at Perrin-Whitt while the boy’s team had an up and down experience.
The Lady Horns went 2-1, only losing in the championship game while the Longhorns also went 2-1.
The Forestburg girls team beat tournament host Perrin-Whitt on a late game shot to win 43-42 to start off the tournament. The Lady Horns then beat Community Christian 56-44 to make it to the tournament championship.
Unfortunately, Forestburg lost to Victory Christian 44-28 to finish the tournament on a bit of a sour note.
Brenna Briles was named to the all-tournament team as she led the team in assists while also taking seven charges during the three games.
The Longhorns’ boys team started the tournament by playing district opponent Prairie Valley. Forestburg was able to win easily 51-28 against the Bulldogs. The Longhorns also beat tournament host Perrin-Whitt’s JV team 46-29.
Unfortunately, Forestburg lost a game against Bryson 61-50 to finish 2-1 at the tournament.
Prairie Valley
The Prairie Valley basketball teams struggled overall at their first tournament last weekend at Perrin-Whitt.
The Lady Bulldogs went 1-2 while the inexperienced Bulldogs team went 0-3.
The Prairie Valley girls bounced back from its opening loss to Victory Christian 48-23, by beating Bryson 34-21. This put the Lady Bulldogs in the consolation championship game where they played Perrin-Whitt. Unfortunately, Prairie Valley lost 43-27.
The boy’s team played district opponent Forestburg to start the tournament and lost 50-28. The Bulldogs bounced back by playing close games against Bryson and Perrin-Whitt JV teams. Unfortunately, they fell short in those games losing 40-35 and 32-30.
Bellevue girls
The Bellevue Lady Eagles won at Archer City on Tuesday in a one-sided game.
The Lady Eagles won 64-36 against the Lady Cats.
After a slow start in the first quarter with Bellevue leading only 11-6, the Lady Eagles scored 21 points in the second quarter to go into halftime up 32-14.
After another slow quarter to start the second half, Bellevue finished strong by scoring 21 points again in the fourth quarter to close out the game.
The Lady Eagles won easily 64-36.
Cirstin Allen led the team with 26 points as she made eight 3-pointers in the game. Tristan Shook joined her in double-figures with 11 points.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.
Two former Bowie boy’s golf members played in the PGA University Championship on Nov. 12-13. (L-R) Cy Egenbacher and Imanol Walker are both in the Sam Houston University PGA Golf Managerment program. The team finished 16th overall. Egenbacher shot 168 during the two rounds and finished tied for 67th. Walker shot 180 and finished 84th. The tournament is a fun one for univesities that have PGA Golf Management programs, which is for individuals who want to work in the golf industry after graduation.
The Saint Jo Lady Panthers came up short at the regional final for the third straight season, one game away from state, on Saturday at the regional tournament in Midlothian.
The Lady Panthers beat Evant in straight sets 3-0 on Friday to reach the final game against Harrold which they lost 3-0.
Saint Jo knew before the season even started it would likely come to this big challenge, but it still had to go through all the steps to get there.
The Panthers reached the regional finals the previous two seasons, losing both times to eventual state champion Blum.
With district realignment meant a new region so a rematch with a Blum program that had graduated several key players from those teams would have to wait until state possibly.
Instead, a showdown against last year’s state runner-up Harrold was forecast in the regional final.
With the team having six seniors, with five of them having been on varsity since they were freshman, it was this year or bust for Saint Jo.
First, the Lady Panthers had to beat Evant. The Lady Elks leaned heavily on a big front court player. When she rotated to the back row, Evant showed almost no net resistance which meant Saint Jo hitters had free reign during that time.
The Lady Panthers won each set pretty easily, with the scores being 25-17, 25-17 and 25-19.
This set up the match with Harrold the team had been anticipating. The Lady Hornets had been at or near the top of the state standings since the beginning of the season.
Harrold had so much respect it had even played bigger local schools this season, beating Bowie in straight sets and Nocona in five sets during its pre-district schedule.
The two teams had met earlier in the season when the Lady Hornets attended Saint Jo’s hosted tournament. The two teams met in the tournament championship where Harrold won 2-1.
Still, with the tournament format being a best of three instead of five and the match after playing an exhausting schedule of five matches the previous two days, that result was not gospel, especially two months later.
The challenge is Harrold had multiple big hitters at the net, which is a big deal since most 1A teams are lucky to have one or two, which meant constant pressure on Saint Jo’s defense.
This also meant the Lady Panthers constantly had to find ways to attack the Lady Hornet defense as well or it would face strong hit after strong hit which was unsustainable for any team.
The first set saw the Lady Hornets get out to a good start before the Lady Panthers rallied back and took a little lead 8-7. Unfortunately, it started turn from there.
Harrold had some good runs from the service line that Saint Jo struggled to make much offense out of and led to the Lady Hornets pulling away. Harrold won 4-1 to get the lead to 11-9 and then extended it to 14-11, 17-13. Another 4-1 run and the Lady Hornets could smell the end of the first set coming.
The Lady Hornets won 25-17 to take the lead 1-0.
Saint Jo needed to bounce back, but unfortunately never got anything going in set two.
Harrold led 4-1 and then 8-2. The Lady Panthers would have needed a huge run at some point from the service line to get back into the set, but it never came as the Lady Hornets lead grew more and more.
Harrold took set two 25-13 to go up 2-0 and had all of the momentum.
Saint Jo had its back against the wall, knowing the only option was to hope for a comeback that would lead to a fifth set, but to get there it needed to win set three.
The Lady Panthers initially started on the right foot. After falling being 4-1 to start the previous two sets, it was Saint Jo that started well up 4-1. Unfortunately, the Lady Hornets came roaring back, going on an 8-2 run as it led 9-6, then 12-8 and 15-10.
It looked like it was heading towards a similar place as set one with Harrold slowly running away with the set before the Lady Panthers made one last gasp.
Saint Jo eventually cut the lead down to one point, trailing 20-19 as the set entered the final stretch and the Lady Panthers had their best momentum of the match.
Unfortunately, it was Harrold that was able to close the set out with momentum, earning the final five points to win 25-19 and the match 3-0.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News. For pictures from Friday’s match, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6870620&T=1
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