SPORTS
Saint Jo girls beat Forestburg for first district title in a decade
The Saint Jo Lady Panthers secured their first district title in 10 years with a win against Forestburg at home on Friday night.
The Lady Panthers won 53-30 against the Lady Horns in a game where whoever won would have wrapped up the district title.
Both teams came into the game with only one loss in district.
Saint Jo had beaten Forestburg the first game between the teams nearly a month ago 45-41. The Lady Panthers only loss in district came in their second game against Slidell.
It was packed inside Saint Jo’s Dome Gym as the Forestburg faithful traveled the 13 miles down the road to support the Lady Horns in the team’s first chance at a district title since possibly the 80s.
The first quarter started and neither team could get settled in offensively. Only two baskets were scored combined and the Lady Panthers led only 4-2 thanks to some made free throws.
The most important thing that happened occurred in the final minute of the quarter. Forestburg’s do everything ball handler Brenna Briles picked up her third foul. She sat not only the rest of that quarter but the full second quarter.
During that time Saint Jo’s offense picked up thanks in large part to its defense. With one of the Lady Horns ball handlers out, the Lady Panthers, who didn’t start the game with a full-court press, switched into it and really started to change the game.
Besides scoring on a three-point play at the beginning of the second quarter, Forestburg failed to score for the rest of it.
Saint Jo created turnovers and sped the game up to its preferred pace and shots finally started to fall for the Lady Panthers.
Payzlie Cervantes made three 3-pointers and scored 11 of the team’s 19 points in the quarter to break away from the Lady Horns.
Saint Jo led 23-5 heading into halftime and had all of the momentum.
Forestburg could only play better offensively going forward and started the third quarter making two 3-pointers early on to surpass its first half total. Unfortunately for the Lady Horns, Briles picked up foul four after three minutes and sat the rest of the quarter.
Despite her missing, Forestburg did a better job of taking care of the ball and scored two more baskets.
The Lady Horns also started employing a full-court press as well after not really having a chance to set it up with the lack of scoring.
It did not seem to slow down the Lady Panthers much. Four different players scored at least one basket as Saint Jo built its lead by outscoring Forestburg 14-11. The Lady Panthers led 37-16 heading into the fourth quarter.
It was a similar story even if both teams drew way more free throws in the final period than either had all game. Even when Saint Jo at times tried to slow the game down, the Lady Panthers still ended with the highest scoring quarter of the game for them.
Saint Jo outscored the Lady Horns 16-14 in the final period to win the game 53-30.
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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