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Forestburg volleyball loses playoff game

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Assistant Coach Brad Robertson talks to the team during a time out to try and turn things around.

The Forestburg Lady Horns season came to an end on Monday night in their bi-district match against Crowell.
The Lady Cats won 3-1 against the Lady Horns to end their season.
Forestburg came into the match as the lower seed and likely underdog. It did not stop the Lady Horns from winning their playoff match last year, but Crowell was a 26 win team that just so happened to have the misfortune of being in a district with top-ranked team Harrold.
Thankfully for Forestburg, one of the Lady Cats top hitters was out with an injury. While Crowell had a bit more size all over the court and brought the much bigger crowd, there was still a chance for the Lady Horns.
The match started and set one saw Forestburg slowly whittle away the Lady Cats hitting confidence. The Lady Horns only have a few players that can hit the ball at the net and Crowell had some tough blockers to deter them. So Forestburg was content to play conservative and tip the ball over for most of the night.
In the first set it worked. The Lady Cats would made a ball control error or eventually make a hitting error out of bounds or into the net while the Lady Horns tried to play clean and scrappy.
Also, Forestburg got a big boost from middle blocker Taylor Griggs who got her hands on several balls which exasperated Crowell’s hitting woes.
The Lady Horns won set one commandingly 25-18 to give them some confidence heading forward. Unfortunately, the conservative style of play came back to bite them.
Set two saw the Lady Cats finally put things together stopped making so many hitting errors.
Outside of Griggs, Forestburg did not offer a lot of resistance at the net during some rotations which meant its back row had to sometimes suffer full force hits which was hard to deal with.
Also, the Lady Horns back row was playing up to take away any tipping Crowell might pull, so the Lady Cats started aiming for the deep back row where no one was. It was a high risk shot since it was so close to going out, but as the match wore on more of them started to go in much to Forestburg’s dismay.
While the Lady Horns were content to play scrappy and tip the ball over until Crowell made a mistake, the Lady Cats were cleaning up the errors and making Forestburg pay for not being aggressive.
The next two sets saw Crowell win easily 25-11 and 25-14 as Forestburg could not find an answer. Even as the Lady Horns tried to mix in more aggressive hits at the net, the results were up and down and frustrated their players.
The fourth set looked like it was heading the same way as the Lady Cats were up 17-8.
Forestburg made one last mighty push, going on an 8-2 run to cut the lead to three points 19-16. Unfortunately, that would be as close as the Lady Horns would get.
Crowell closed the match on 6-3 run to win 25-19 and 3-1 overall.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News. For more pictures from the game, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6870328&T=1

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Bowie Basketball Interview

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Interview with Bowie basketball players Parker Riddle (left) and Payton Holt following their win against Bellevue on Nov. 19, 2024.
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Two Bowie graduates play in PGA University Championship

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(Courtesy photo)

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.

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Lady Panthers fall in the regional final

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The Saint Jo Lady Panthers start to embrace after the final point was scored and the match was over as the realization set in it was the last time for six of the players on a high school volleyball court. (Photo by Jennifer Gaston)

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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