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
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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