SPORTS
Prairie Valley wins bi-district match in thrilling fashion
The Prairie Valley Lady Bulldogs survived a battle for their volleyball lives on Tuesday night against Vernon Northside in the bi-district playoff game.
The Lady Bulldogs nearly saw the Lady Indians come back to steal the match before narrowly winning the five-set thriller to continue their season.
Prairie Valley came into the game confident as the higher two seed playing Vernon Northside. This Lady Bulldogs group had won their bi-district playoff match each of the past three seasons, usually with little trouble.
The Lady Indians would prove to be a different breed, being in a district with top-ranked Harrold and a solid Crowell team they narrowly took the second seed from.
The first set was the most lopsided of the match even if the opening 20 points were competitive. Prairie Valley led 11-9 before busting out on a 7-3 run to go up 18-12. The Lady Bulldogs were able to cruise to an easy 25-16 win as they were playing good and getting the result they expected.
The second set saw Prairie Valley start behind a little at 6-4 before going on a great run in the middle of the set to break it open again. The Lady Bulldogs went 12-0 to go up 16-6 and it looked like Prairie Valley was going to be able to coast again to the end.
Northside then started to show a peak of what was to come. The Lady Indians rallied, making the Lady Bulldogs sweat a bit more than they would have liked trying to close out the set.
Prairie Valley still won with a little wiggle room 25-20 and were up 2-0, but Northside played better down the stretch and used that momentum in set three.
Initially the Lady Indians took the early lead, but the Lady Bulldogs tied the score at 10-10. Then Northside went on a 7-3 run and were able to keep that distance until the end of the set as it won 25-21 to extend the match.
Set four was similar at the start. Early leads from the Lady Indians fell away when Prairie Valley caught back up or tied the score, but could not grab control.
With the Lady Bulldogs down only 18-17 heading into the end game, it was Northside that closed the set well. The Lady Indians went on a 4-1 run to open up a 22-18 lead before ultimately winning 25-20 to tie the match.
There was a lot of frustration in the air. While Prairie Valley had lost the two previous sets in competitive fashion, there were plenty of aspects where the team seemed to be fading while Northside was growing in confidence.
The Lady Bulldogs were content to use their superior ball control at times to outpatient the Lady Indians in long rallies. While Prairie Valley had many good plays at the net, several blocks by the overall bigger frontline from Northside seemed to make the Lady Bulldogs more hesitant to hit the ball hard and instead tried to tactfully tip the ball more often then not.
This made points hard to come by and every long rally that did not end up going Prairie Valley’s way in sets three and four sting that much more.
It all had a sinking feeling to it from the Lady Bulldogs perspective as Northside came back and got more confident hitting the ball hard at the net, picking up the tipped balls better and just having the ball bounce its way more and more.
Prairie Valley also got dealt a blow as front line player Abbie Pepper went down with an ankle injury during this time and the Lady Bulldogs had to change rotations on the fly.
With the world falling in around Prairie Valley, the match entered the fifth set.
Thankfully, fifth sets can sometimes be its own entity, separate from the sets that came before. With the stakes winner-take-all and the set played only to 15 instead of 25, every point won and every lead gets multiplied in everyone’s gut tenfold.
That is why when the Lady Bulldogs started the fifth set down 4-0, it seemed like the end was near for this group that feature five senior starters. Still down four points a short time later 6-2, Prairie Valley found a way to come back and won the next five points to take the lead 7-6.
It was game on from there as the teams traded points back-and-forth. Tied at 11-11, it was there when the Lady Bulldogs broke the cycle and won two straight points to take a 13-11 lead.
That opening would be enough as Prairie Valley seized it and won two of the next three points to win the set 15-12 and the match 3-2.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.
For more pictures from the match, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6870376&T=1
It was announced last week Nocona Athletic director/football coach Blake Crutsinger is resigning from his position at the school after serving four years.
Crutsinger said now is the time for his family to make the move, with his daughter Avery graduating after spending four years at Nocona and with his son Kellar about to enter high school and wanting the same for him at another school.
“With her going off to college, she had a really good four years here and just looking at Keller heading into high school and exploring some opportunities that might be better for him, it is just time,” Crutsinger said.
Crutsinger went 19-22 overall, helping the Indians to two playoff appearances in 2022 and 2023. The team’s best season was 2023, when it went 8-2 and won the district title, the first one in 11 years for the program.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly edition of the Bowie News.
Saint Jo senior Payzlie Cervantes signed her letter of intent to play college basketball last week at Highland College in Kansas. She also played volleyball, softball and ran track at Saint Jo. “After talking with Coach Tana Coleman, I really connected with her and loved the campus vibe and direction she wants for the team,” Cervantes said. “I’m looking forward to continuing my basketball career while getting my associates degree in nursing to become a registered nurse.”
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly edition of the Bowie News.
Last week Montague County had five girls from Bowie and Saint Jo compete at the state tennis tournament, and one team brought back some hardware.
Sisters from Bowie, junior Heidi and freshman Willow Siebert brought back a bronze medal competing in the 3A girl’s doubles bracket.
The pair were the first people from the program to make it back to state since their half sisters, Meagan and Myah Russell, advanced nine years previously.
The Sieberts came into state as a two-seed, having finished second at the regional tournament the previous week.
The duo was ready as they blew through their first two matches. They beat a team from Hondo in the first round with the scores being 6-1, 6-1 and dominated even more in the second round against a team from Tatum, winning 6-0, 6-1.
That got them through to the second day of the tournament, but Coach Dayna Boothe was worried they had had it too easy on day one.
Playing in the semifinals, the Lady Rabbits faced a familiar foe, a team from Peaster they had beaten in the regional tournament the previous week. Unfortunately, near the end of the first set, with the Sieberts fighting to stay alive, Heidi went after a high lob and slammed into the fence. She hurt her right arm and had to play through it for the rest of the match.
They lost the match with the scores being 6-3, 6-3.
It was an all Peaster final, with the other side of the bracket producing the team that both beat the Sieberts at the regional tournament and won their second straight state title.
Still, despite the disappointment, Bowie is bringing back a bronze medal. According to Boothe, after contacting people who would know dating back to the late 1970s, it could possibly be the program’s first medals from the state tournament in tennis.
Of course, Bowie was not the only school represented. Saint Jo had Taylor Patrick competing in girl’s singles and the team of Bailie Nobile and Maxey Johnson competing in girl’s doubles in the 1A classification.
Senior Patrick was making her third appearance at the state tournament, but her first in the singles competition.
She finished third at the regional meet which meant she had a tough first round matchup against a second seed from Fort Davis.
It took everything from Patrick in a match that lasted two and a half hours. She went down in the first set 6-2, but rebounded in a tight second set to win 6-4 to force a third and final set. She had the momentum and won 6-2 to move on.
She had to summon the energy to play later that day against a fresh one-seed player from Utopia. Patrick lost 6-1, 6-1 to end her Saint Jo career. Her opponent would go on to finish second.
Juniors Johnson and Nobile were making their first appearances at the state meet after finishing second at the regional tournament. In the first round they played a tough match against a team from Marathon. It seemed evenly matched throughout, but small mistakes at inopportune times cost them throughout the match. In the end, the team lost by the scores of 6-3, 6-3.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly edition of the Bowie News.
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