SPORTS
Gold-Burg football loses opening game at Perrin-Whitt
The Gold-Burg Bears lost their opening game of the season on Thursday night at Perrin-Whitt.
The Pirates seemed to stun the Bears, winning by mercy rule 46-0 early in the third quarter.
Gold-Burg came into the game with confidence. The Bears had blown out Perrin-Whitt the previous season 64-16. Despite graduating some foundational players from that team, enough of the core remained for the feeling to be that the result would be similar enough.
It started from the kickoff as Gold-Burg got the ball deep in its own territory. The Bears’ attempts to move the ball were muted and they were stopped on fourth down at their own 22 yard line.
Gold-Burg’s defense was doing an admirable early job of trying to make the Pirates earn it by bottling up sweeps near its goal line.
Unfortunately, a bust in coverage on a play-action rollout left someone wide open for a nine-yard touchdown pass. Perrin-Whitt made the extra point and led 8-0.
The Bears next offensive possession saw their most explosive play of the game happen as Jayton Epperson connected with Keelyn Case on a juggling contested catch near the Pirates’ goal line.
Unfortunately, the Gold-Burg offense stalled out after four downs and turned the ball over to Perrin-Whitt, backed up at its own nine yard-line.
The Pirates got some rhythm going running the football with sweeps and counters to the outside as they marched down the field. Eventually, Perrin-Whitt’s running back got lose on the sideline for a 19-yard touchdown to go up 16-0.
Right as everything seemed to be going horribly wrong for the Bears as the first quarter winded down, it was punctuated by the Pirates recovering the ensuing onside kick to get the ball back and assistant coach Seth McMinn getting stung by a wasp on his finger.
The second quarter was not any better. Perrin-Whitt quickly scored as momentum and fatigue seemed to be getting to Gold-Burg’s defense. The Pirates scored on a nine-yard run to go up 24-0.
Despite a good kick-off return for the Bears, the next drive was stalled out near midfield as Gold-Burg just could not get much of anything going.
Perrin-Whitt then had its most explosive play of the game so far as its running back got loose for a 34-yard run to go up 32-0.
As the game went on, several Bear players started to go down with injuries, serious enough to be out the rest of the game, especially considering how it was going.
The Bears responded with their best drive of the game as they methodically drove down the field, mixing in tough running with some short passes that kept the chains moving which had been a struggle all game.
Driving down near the Pirates goal line, unfortunately Gold-Burg’s offense stalled out again. Perrin-Whitt’s defense forced another turnover on downs, but the Pirates were truly backed up.
A penalty backed up Perrin-Whitt a little more and the Bears were a bit more aggressive trying to force a negative play.
The Pirates responded with a quick pass that the receiver took the rest of the way, with a teammate out in front to block, for a 74-yard touchdown pass. Perrin-Whitt led 40-0.
With less than two minutes left before halftime, Gold-Burg knew it was the last chance it had to try and score.
With the Pirates getting the ball after halftime and the defense not being able to get a stop so far in the game, the end of the game was in the hands of the Bears offense to try and prevent this game from ending.
Gold-Burg frantically moved the ball down the field to give itself a chance, with some big plays from Paul Jones and Zander Crawford along with quarterback Levi Hellinger when he connected with Paul Allen.
Unfortunately, the Bears ran out of time before halftime.
The second half saw the Pirates receive the kickoff and Gold-Burg came out with a lot of energy from its players that the game could still be turned around with a stop from its defense.
The Bears defense stifled the sweeps that had killed them in the second quarter, but Perrin-Whitt still drove to Gold-Burg’s 15 yard line.
On a pass play the Bears defense had covered well, the Pirate player scrambled from one side of the field to the other before finding room to score on a 15-yard touchdown run that ended the game.
Perrin-Whitt won 46-0.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News. To see more pictures from the game, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6865525&T=1
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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