SPORTS
Longhorns beat Panthers 53-43
The Forestburg Longhorns took control of second place in district with a win at Saint Jo on Friday night.
The Longhorns 53-43 in a game that was a lot closer than it seemed like it was going to be at the start of the game.
Forestburg came into the game with a one game advantage on the Panthers in the district standings. The Longhorns won the first game between the teams 56-40, which was their first win against Saint Jo since 2018.
The Panthers were missing a starter in that first game and with the home crowd on their side, they were hoping the second game would be different.
Early on it was not much different from the first game.
Forestburg was passing through Saint Jo’s zone defense and getting easy looks for its big post player Kyler Willett and looks in the mid-post for scorer Jesus Sanchez. They combined to score all of the team’s points in the quarter.
With the Longhorns up 8-0 midway through the first quarter, Saint Jo suffered a big set back when the team’s best post player Trent Gaston went down with a serious leg injury that put him on the bench for the rest of the game.
Forestburg led 17-6 after the first quarter.
The Panthers had to double-down on having high energy and feisty play to make up for their size disadvantage. They started to employ a full-court press, generally started to win the hustle balls and did their best to try and speed up the Longhorns pace faster than what they wanted to play.
Forestburg took a hit when Willett picked up his fourth foul and had to sit not just for most of the second quarter, but all of the third quarter as well.
The Longhorns survived offensively in the second quarter with five different players scoring at least one basket, but the good looks were harder to generate without Willett and his size advantage out there.
Still, Forestburg led 32-14, but Saint Jo came screaming back in the second half.
The Panthers were finally able to have several 3-pointers go in for them in the third quarter after only one found the net in the first half. Saint Jo made three in the period while the defensive intensity really seemed to bother and limit the Longhorns, who only scored seven points.
The Panthers cut the lead to 10 points, down 39-29 but had the game flipped in their style and favor with a raucous crowd getting into it.
Even with Willett coming back in for Forestburg in the fourth quarter, Saint Jo’s charge continued to come.
Midway through and with only four minutes left to play in the game, the Panthers had cut the Longhorns lead to single-digits 41-34 and Forestburg had only scored two points.
The Longhorns did not sweat as they started earning a lot of trips to the free throw line from an aggressive Panthers team that was not just going to let them burn clock.
Despite earning only three attempts in the first three quarters, Forestburg went 10-12 at the free throw line to keep Saint Jo at bay, even as the Panthers cut the lead to six points in the final minutes of action.
The Longhorns won 53-43 thanks to the good free throw shooting.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week 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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