SPORTS
Saint Jo girls open district against Bellevue with a win
The Saint Jo Lady Panthers started district play on Tuesday night with a win at Bellevue.
The Lady Panthers won 55-49 in a close game where two stylistically similar teams with playoff aspirations competed.
Saint Jo came into district play fresh off a super tough tournament at Nocona against mostly bigger schools. The Lady Panthers also were a little beat up with one starter out for the game and several still feeling the effects.
Nevertheless, Saint Jo returns the majority of its team that finished second in district last year and is looking to challenge for the district title.
The Lady Eagles are hoping to turn over a new leaf after the mostly led freshman group last year missed the playoffs for the first time in several seasons. A year of growth and also some tough competition during pre-district has Bellevue not only expecting the playoffs again, but possibly at the district title.
Both teams employ similar but different full-court, zone style press/trap defenses. The goal is to force turnovers and get chances in transition to score. When that isn’t there both teams like to push the ball anyway and look for quick 3-pointers or drive-and-kick chances.
Despite the expectations, the pace was not lightning quick all of the time. Both teams tried to be methodical breaking the press instead of trying to sprint through and put up the first open shot they got. There were holes in both teams’ 3-2 zone defense and each coach was trying to attack them with the personnel they had.
Saint Jo took a narrow lead 15-11 at the end of the first quarter. Bellevue’s points mostly came on knocking down open 3-pointers. The Lady Panthers were mixing up the approach and earned more free throw attempts.
The Lady Eagles varied their approach in the second quarter, getting post player Callie Martin more involved and earning some free throw attempts as well which also put Saint Jo’s shortened bench to the test.
The Lady Panthers offense started to have a bit more trouble against Bellevue’s press that lasted the rest of the game. While the turnovers ramped up for Saint Jo, they usually were not the type that turned into transition opportunities on a regular basis.
Still, Saint Jo held onto its narrow lead, even after giving it up midway through the second quarter. The Lady Panthers compensated by making four 3-pointers and scoring on some high percentage shots near the rim.
After the highest scoring quarter for both teams as they each scored 18 points, Saint Jo was ahead 33-29 at halftime.
The Lady Panthers had some trouble in the third quarter as one of their ball handlers had to sit out the majority of time with foul trouble. Also, in the final three minutes of the quarter, do everything player Taylor Patrick took a tumble that had her take a rest while getting her head back on straight.
While Bellevue continued to attack in similar ways as it did in the third quarter, Saint Jo was carried offensively by Kyler Dunn. She scored all 14 of the team’s points in the quarter as she earned eight free throw attempts and made two 3-pointers.
The Lady Panthers lead grew by one heading into the fourth quarter up 47-42.
The pace was slowed down by Saint Jo to try and prevent the Lady Eagle’s chances to come back. Midway through, the Lady Panthers had their biggest lead of the game 54-45 and just tried to stall and earn free throws.
While Bellevue got lucky and Saint Jo went 1-6 from the free throw line in the quarter, the Lady Eagles could not get enough of their limited shots to go down late to make up the difference.
The Lady Panthers won 55-49.
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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