SPORTS
Lady Indians beat Saint Jo 19-2
The Nocona Lady Indians won at Saint Jo on Tuesday night to earn their first district win of the season.
The Lady Indians won 19-2, with the game stopping after three innings due to run-rule.
Nocona came into the game needing a pick me up after struggling in its first three district games.
Saint Jo was hoping it could compete well against the bigger school and show signs of improvement.
The Lady Indians loaded the bases up with two walks and hit batter to start the game. Skye Kirby then came through with a bases clearing triple. Heidi Atteberry followed with an RBI single.
After a walk, Shelby Sewell drove in one run with a single. Abby Hill followed with a two RBI double. After a single, the Lady Panthers did catch a runner at home plate for an out.
Reagan Phipps drove in one run with a double. Avery Crutsinger then hit a double before Kirby came back up to drive both base runners in with another triple.
Nocona led 10-0 before Saint Jo had taken an at-bat.
The Lady Panthers got one run back. Payzlie Cervantes led off with a double. She later stole third base and scored on a wild pitch to cut the lead to 10-1.
Saint Jo got two other players on base with a walk and a hit batter, but the Lady Indians caught one trying to steal third base, caught a fly ball in center field and pitcher Atteberry struck out the final batter to get out of the first inning.
Nocona batters kept taking advantage of the Lady Panthers struggles hitting the strike zone. The first three batters all drew walks to load the bases with no outs to start the second inning.
Saint Jo got the force out at home on a groundball to first base, but a walk followed and drove in one run. Crutsinger then hit a bases clearing triple to score three runs. She would later score on a wild pitch.
Evelyn Marquez drew a walk and eventually worked her way to third base. An error trying to pick her off allowed her to come in and score for Nocona.
The Lady Indians led 16-1.
Nocona’s defense shut down Saint Jo’s bats in the second inning. Atteberry struck out one batter, fielded a groundball for an out and induced a pop out at second base.
Hill led off for the Lady Indians with a single. A wild pitch and stolen base got her to third base before Phipps drove her in with a single.
Marquez then would drive her in with a triple before Kirby hit an RBI double to score Nocona’s last run of the game.
Trailing 19-1, Saint Jo needed to score four or more runs to keep the game going.
Nevaeh Spann led off and was hit by a pitch and got on base. Cervantes followed and drew a walk.
After a pop out and a fielder’s choice out at third base that got the lead runner, Cervantes scored on a wild pitch to cut the lead to 19-2.
After a walk put runners at the corners, a ground out to the shortstop ended the game.
The Lady Indians won 19-2.
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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