SPORTS
Friday night football mini previews
This Friday kicks off the Texas high school football season and all five Montague County teams are buckling down to try and come away 1-0 after the first week.
Bowie
The Bowie Jackrabbits travel to Graham this week to play the 4A Steers at 7:30 p.m.
It will be a good test for the mostly new look Bowie team as Graham is in a similar boat just having graduated a big senior class as well.
Coach Hugh Farmer mentioned sophomore quarterback Ty Thompson being the key to the Steers’ offense after playing a lot as a freshman last season.
He estimates the team leans a bit more on the run but are balanced on offense and has some receivers that have made plays on film.
On defense, Farmer said the Steers play a similar 3-3 stack defense as the Jackrabbits do which will give them some familiarity for the formation.
“It’s going to be a really good test for us against a good team with a lot of tradition,” Farmer said. “Those kids are going to walk out on the field and think they can win and we are going to have to match that.”
Nocona
The Nocona Indians open their season at home against Era at 7:30 p.m.
The 2A Hornets went 2-9 last year but return more than half their players on both sides of the ball and will be looking to improve with the continuity.
Nocona Coach Blake Crutsinger said Era will look to stay balanced out of the spread offensive formation and the defense will have to be ready for anything.
On offense, Crutsinger said he feels his team can move the ball if they continue to sharpen things up while also hinting they left some things out of the scrimmage the Hornets may not be ready for.
Saint Jo
The Saint Jo Panthers are scheduled to open their season at 7:30 p.m. at home against Wichita Christian.
The Stars are a private school that Stevens says likes to spread teams out and throw the football. Stevens feels like this year’s defense is one of the more athletic he has had and feels confident they will be equipped to handle it.
Offensively with the playmakers the Panthers have on offense, Stevens feels like his team should be able to run the ball well if they are to be successful in this game, though the team will try to diversify up the offensive formations this year.
“We have to get better at blocking than we did in our scrimmages,” Stevens said. “Blocking in a practice setting is a whole different thing. The other key will be can we tackle in space?”
Gold-Burg
The Gold-Burg Bears open their season on the road at 7:30 p.m. at Perrin-Whitt.
The Bears are familiar with the Pirates as the team have opened the season against the other several years in a row at this point.
That familiarity is even more so with new Coach Brady Hibbitt having spent the past two seasons as an assistant at Perrin-Whitt.
“Those kids we watched on film, we have to go into the game not expecting we are just going to beat them,” Hibbitts said. “They are a really good team and well coached. We are going to have to play one of our better games to beat them.”
Hibbitts noted Cassey Beach as a player to watch as a quick footed athlete on both sides of the ball and Dylan Trammell at a big kid who usually blocks but sometime carries the ball as well.
Forestburg
The Forestburg Longhorns are opening their season at home at 7 p.m. against the North Texas Spartan.
The Spartans out of Mckninney are a home school team that will be playing their first game ever. With no film from even a scrimmage to go off of, the Longhorns are going into the game blind.
The good news is the team will be getting three new players to expand to 12 players in time for the game, which will give Forestburg some much needed depth it has been missing for several years if they can get those players up to speed.
So in preparation, the Longhorns will be focusing on polishing up their fundamentals in practice to be as sharp as they can be.
Playing the best version of their type of football will hopefully lead to success against a team that will probably have less experience than they do.
The Red River High School Bass Club competed this past weekend, May 31 – June 1, at the State Tournament on Lake Conroe for the two-day tournament.
Two of the teams from Montague County traveled south to try their best at the culmination of the year for the state title. Teams were able to pre-fish on Friday before the Saturday and Sunday competition. On Friday, there was a flipping contest for the youth and Cooper Johnson won third overall and won a $500 scholarship and an Academy gift card.
The club’s two teams who competed were Lane Smith/Colt Henry with boat captain Jimmy Smith. The team placed 63rd with a total of 16.22 pounds. The second team of Cooper Johnson/Corbyn Patton and boat captain Jayson Toerck placed 169th with a total weight of 2.29 pounds.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly edition of the Bowie News.
The Maskat Shrine Oil Bowl is this week on June 6-7 and graduating athletes from Bowie, Nocona and Saint Jo are confirmed to be playing.
In total, seven athletes from Bowie, five from Nocona and three from Saint Jo are planning to play in the all-star games this week. Nocona also will have a pair of coaches participating as well.
The girl’s basketball game kicks off events on June 6, scheduled for 6 p.m. at Wichita Falls Memorial High School. In the game, the east team will have Nocona players Avery Crutsinger, Meg Meekins and Reagan Phipps playing while Kyler Spitzer and Clayton Brown coach them one last time.
On the west team, Saint Jo’s Payzlie Cervantes is confirmed to be playing.
The boy’s basketball game is scheduled to follow at 7:30 p.m. On the east team, Bowie’s Boston Farris and Nocona’s Jose Gomez Jr. will be playing.
On June 7, the volleyball games are scheduled to start at 4 p.m. with the small school game. On the west team, Nocona’s Kaygan Stone and Saint Jo’s Taylor Patrick are confirmed to play. On the east team, Saint Jo’s Aubrey Morman will get to play her teammate.
There are no local athletes confirmed to be playing in the big school volleyball game.
The final event is the football game, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Memorial Stadium. It is an all Bowie affair with six players confirmed to be playing for the east team: Justin Clark, Jorge De Leon, Hunter Fluitt and Braden Rhyne, Preacher Chambers and Moh Azouak.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly edition of the Bowie News.
Nocona Independent School District officials looked inward for a new athletic director/head football coach, selecting Jeff Hill for the position.
Hill, who served last year as Nocona football’s offensive coordinator and also led the softball program to the playoffs for the first time in a while as its head coach, was upgraded to the role.
This came on the heels of former Athletic Director Blake Crutsinger, who served in the role the last four years, resigned in May.
For Hill, the choice to apply for the position was a no brainer. His one year in Nocona had impressed upon him and his wife that it was the place they would like to be long term.
“I’m looking for a town to raise my kids in and Nocona has treated my family really well,” Hill said. “There are some really good people. The kids work hard. Everything I am looking for in a hometown is right here in Nocona and I want to try and make it as best as it can be, especially through athletics.”
Before Nocona, Hill served as the athletic director at S&S Consolidated while also spending time at Hebron and Whitewright in his coaching career.
Hill expresses great respect for the departing Crutsinger and besides changing a few small things in how he personally wants to do things, he is not trying to come in with a sweeping restructuring of the whole athletic department.
The program had five of its six team sports make the playoffs, with volleyball playing in the regional final and the girl’s basketball team winning the state championship.
That along with two athletes competing at the state championship in cross country and track with one earning a gold medal, it was one of the more successful school years in athletic program history.
“Coach Crutsinger was awesome and did a great job so honestly just little tweaks, a little bit of structure and cohesion amongst the coaching staff between boys and girls,” Hill said. “I hope to keep the winning tradition going overall in the athletic department.”
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly edition of the Bowie News.
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