Ballinger 27, Odessa Compass 20 — Brody Wilde had an 89-yard kickoff return touchdown and a 70-yard pick-six to go with 40 yards rushing and 26 yards receiving to power the Bearcats to a hard-fought win over the Cougars.e
Wyatt Clemens added 165 yards and two touchdowns passing, and Hunter Kresta received for 91 yards and a TD as Ballinger made a 21-14 halftime lead hold up in the final two quarters for its second straight win to start the season.
Before Haskell senior quarterback Haegen Pinkerton arrived at HHS as a freshman, the name of Pinkerton was something I associated with the famous detective agency.
I now associate it with statistical insanity, and you should associate it with the Big Country Preps Player of the Week.
Pinkerton, who was behind center in Haskell’s 80-62 loss to Stamford, had one of the biggest nights I can recollect in a losing effort, accounting for seven touchdowns on Friday.
Hitting 15 of 22 throws for 193 yards, three of Pinkerton’s deliveries went for scores. But it was on the ground where he did most of his damage, rushing 29 times for 290 yards and four touchdowns to help keep the Indians competitive.
Colorado City 29, Roscoe 22 (OT) — The Wolves followed up their shocking upset of Sonora in last season’s finale with another impressive showing to open the 2026 campaign, outlasting the Plowboys in overtime.
Quarterback Ace Mejia led the way for C-City, rushing for 173 yards and two touchdowns to go with his 107 yards and additional TD passing, while sophomore Joel Hernandez finished with 86 yards on just eight carries, including the game-sealing 22-yard touchdown run in overtime (shown in the video above).
After a week of highlighting area playmakers, we wrap up our eight-part preseason position rankings series with the Big Country’s best signal callers.
To complete our look at the area’s top players, we’ve ranked our top 15 quarterbacks with a list of others to watch in 2026.
We hope you enjoy this list and that you’ve enjoyed our position rankings as we get set to kick off a new season.
As we wind down our eight-part preseason position rankings series, we arrive finally at the Big Country’s top ball-carriers.
After breaking down this year’s crop of receivers and tight ends earlier today, we move now to the area’s top backs, ranking our top 15 with a list of others to watch in 2026. Don’t forget to check in tomorrow when we conclude our series with the top 10 area quarterbacks.
We hope you enjoy this list and encourage you to check out the other position groups, which are linked below.
We’re approaching the final stretch of our eight-part preseason position rankings series, and it’s time to look at the Big Country’s top receivers.
After starting the offensive portion of our series with the linemen, we now shift our attention to the playmakers on the perimeter, ranking our top 15 wideouts/tight ends with a list of others to watch in 2026.
We hope you enjoy our list and encourage you to check out the other position groups, which are linked below.
With the defensive and special teams rankings behind us, it’s time to look at the area’s top offensive players. And we’ll start with the foundation of any productive offense: the offensive line.
For the fifth installment of our eight-part preseason position rankings series, we turn our attention to the trenches, ranking the Big Country’s top 15 offensive linemen with a list of others to watch in 2026.
We hope you enjoy reading through our rankings.
After recognizing the top defensive players throughout the Big Country over the past three days, it’s time to honor the specialists.
We continue our eight-part preseason position rankings series by naming our top 10 kickers and top three punters to watch this fall.
We hope you enjoy this list and that you have enjoyed our position rankings as we get set to kickoff the 2026 season.
After starting with the linemen and linebackers, we turn to the defensive backfield to complete our look at the top defenders in the Big Country.
For the third installment in our eight-part preseason position rankings series, we shift our focus to the secondary, giving our list of the area’s top 15 defensive backs and others to look out for in 2026.
We hope you enjoy our list.
After taking a look at the Big Country’s top defensive linemen last night, it’s now time to examine those who will backing them in 2026.
Continuing with Big Country Preps’ eight-part preseason position rankings series, here’s our top 15 linebackers to watch this fall, as well as a list of the others we’re expecting big things from.
We hope you enjoy our list.
With the start of football season around the corner, it’s time to take a look at the players who will be making the biggest impact in 2026.
For the first installment in an eight-part series that will cover all position groups, we’ll be taking a look at the area’s top defensive linemen, ranking our top 15 with a list of others to watch this fall.
As with any such list, these rankings are subjective. We hope you enjoy reading through them.
Continue reading “Big Country Preps Preseason Football Position Rankings: Defensive Linemen”
The time has arrived for us to make our Big Country predictions, district-by-district.
Several weeks of research and two solid months of summertime labor have gone into this, so we’re more than ready to post it.
With that please dive in and study our take on the upcoming season, along with the more than 80 preseason stories we posted earlier today. Enjoy! We’ll see you on the road!
With a year under his belt as a starter at the toughest position on the field, Colorado City quarterback Ace Mejia stands to be one of the area’s more interesting breakout candidates this fall.
And that’s just partly because that year was spent as a sophomore.
Though the Wolves went just 1-9, Mejia put up respectable numbers in 2026, especially for a youngster. He completed 105 of 203 passes for 1,200 yards and 10 touchdowns. Maybe just as impressive was the stat most QBs long to avoid — the 5-foot-9, 150-pounder threw just five interceptions.
To further hone his craft, Mejia attended five different quarterback camps over the summer, during which he worked on all aspects of his game. His coach — and father — Daniel Mejia, said he can already see a bigger, better version of the quarterback that finished the 2025 season.
When the nine preceding lines on your 2025 season record showed an “L” beside the final score, a victory in Game 10 isn’t just another outcome. It’s all at once a tribute to persistence, a testament to the notion that “hard work eventually pays off,” and — maybe most importantly — a symbol of hope that wasn’t born until a few seconds after the last whistle of the season blew.
Indeed, a final score on Nov. 7, 2025 that read “Colorado City 42, Sonora 12” served a multitude of purposes, not the least of which was the exclamation point it attached to what first-year coach Daniel Mejia and his staff had preached for three months, even after the defeats continued to mount:
“ALL IS NOT LOST!”
So, now, as the Wolves prepare for the 2026 campaign, there is reason for players, coaches and fans of the program to adopt an even more significant mantra:
“THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”
Here are our second-team selections for the 2026 All-Big Country Preps baseball team. For the rest of this year’s selections, click the links below.
Here are our second-team selections for the 2026 All-Big Country Preps baseball team. For the rest of this year’s selections, click the links below.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to release our 2026 All-Big Country Preps baseball teams.
Here, you will find our Rising Stars Team honoring the top freshmen and sophomores in the Big Country.
For the rest of this year’s baseball selections, please click the links below.
Here are our first-team selections for the 2026 All-Big Country Preps softball team. For the rest of this year’s selections, click the links below.
Here are our second-team selections for the 2026 All-Big Country Preps softball team. For the rest of this year’s selections, click the links below.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to release our 2026 All-Big Country Preps Softball teams.
Here, you will find our Rising Stars Team honoring the top freshmen and sophomores in the Big Country.
For the rest of this year’s softball selections, please click the links below.
Scoring and rebounding is only part of the story when it comes to basketball. Behind the scenes and beyond the view of the public, is where character is often measured. And it is with our Big Country Preps Gym Rat Team that we salute the individuals who exude the most of it.
This team isn’t about who the best players are, though some of the area’s top players are on this list.
The Gym Rat team is about effort, discipline, toughness, coachability and selflessness — traits that coaches love above all else and that championship foundations are built upon.
It is for that reason that our Gym Rat team is selected entirely by area coaches, described in their own words. And Big Country Preps is absolutely honored to present these individuals to you — the best “team players” (boys and girls) that the area had to offer during the 2025-26 season.
Players are listed in no particular order.
Enjoy.
Below are the current season statistical leaders for Big Country boys basketball through Feb. 19. With the end of the regular season, this will be the FINAL boys basketball leaders we post this year.
This database has been continually updated for our subscribers throughout the regular season, using only those statistics submitted by area coaches.
Is your favorite team missing? If so, please pass along a friendly reminder to your coach to check his email for our weekly stats request. We’ll be happy to add them to our database after they arrive.
Below are the current season statistical leaders for Big Country girls basketball through Feb. 12. This will be our FINAL girls stat leaders for 2026.
This database has been continually updated for our subscribers throughout the regular season, using only those statistics submitted by area coaches.
Is your favorite team missing? If so, please pass along a friendly reminder to your coach to check his or her email for our weekly stats request. We’ll be happy to add them to our database after they arrive.
With the regular season concluding this week, we take a final look around the area, both the top games of last week and those coming up.
Keep an eye out for the postseason pairings for both girls and boys basketball on BigCountryPreps.com — both of which will be posted in the near future.
Lets dive in, shall we?
Surprised — and in some cases, stressed out — faces could be seen in abundance Monday morning at Abilene’s Region 14 Education Services Center, where coaches from throughout the area and beyond gathered to learn their new district homes as part of the University Interscholastic League’s biennial realignment.
In what can best be described as a seismic shift in the Big Country football landscape, a majority of area schools were placed in unfamiliar environs — be that a new district with new foes or even a new region entirely.
The now venerated process by which the UIL releases the packet containing the new district alignments for football, basketball and volleyball is frequently compared by coaches to waking up on Christmas morning to find what presents await under the three. And on this day, in particular, few found the gifts they were expecting.
With January’s schedule-jumbling weather behind us, we now look forward to multiple games with playoff implications around the Big Country Preps coverage area.
There were no shortage of big matchups last week and as usual, there are several more in the days ahead.
So let’s take a quick look at the menu for Feb. 2-6.
It should be fun, I’ll see you on the road.
The winter storm that blew across most of the state over the weekend wreaked havoc on the area basketball schedule, forcing most of last Friday’s games to be pushed up a day and the bulk of this week’s early games to postponed all the way to Thursday.
But icy weather — and the bevy of schedule changes that came with it — have done little to cool the area’s rapidly heating district races.
We still had a number of thrilling and significant results last week and have a bunch of intriguing games to look forward to over the next few days. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the biggest of those in our weekly look at the Big Country girls basketball scene.
Most high school football teams have that one player acknowledged by the coaching staff as the prime example of what a teammate should be.
He’s the guy who seldom misses any practice time and is a regular in the weight room. He’s early to arrive. He’s late to leave and takes pride in being coachable, though he seldom needs direction.
He always sets the right example for younger players. He doesn’t complain and, above all else, he’s tough enough to make all the aforementioned traits consistently possible.
Know someone like that? Here is where they are honored.
Here are our first-team selections for the 2025 All-Big Country Preps football team. For the rest of this year’s selections, click the links below.
Here are our second-team selections for the 2025 All-Big Country Preps football team. For the rest of this year’s selections, click the links below.
Here are our selections for the 2024 All-Big Country Preps Football Team (Third-Team roster). For the rest of this year’s selections, click the links below.
Here are our selections for the 2024 All-Big Country Preps Rising Stars Team — an honor reserved for the area’s top freshman and sophomore football players. For the rest of this year’s selections, click the links below.
Coming off a breakout junior season that ended prematurely due to a torn ACL late in district play, Wylie running back Julius wasn’t having the type of senior season he had hoped to going into Friday’s Senior Night game against Plainview.
Running behind a young and often banged-up offensive line, Laine entered that matchup with 668 yards on 135 carries on the year, including a combined 139 yards on the ground in three consecutive losses leading up to the Plainview game.
On Friday, though, the 6-foot-2, 235-pound bruiser finally broke loose and found some open field — a lot of open field — in closing out his high school career with a memorable night worthy of our Big Country Preps Player of the Week honor. By the game’s end, Laine had run for a career-high 300 yards and five touchdowns, including scoring runs of 35, 39 and 49 yards, to lead the Bulldogs to a wild 70-52 victory.
Colorado City 42, Sonora 12 — Ace Mejia threw for 200 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 79 yards and two more scores to lead the Wolves to what may have been the upset of the year over the Broncos.
Gavin Harbour (11-57), Joel Hernandez (3-54, 1 TD) and Mikell Martinez (3-24, 1 TD) also contributed to a 212-yard rushing effort for Colorado City (1-9, 0-5), which got quality receiving days from Jadon Reyna (3-61, 1 TD), Aidan Casares (3-59) and Davin Lara (4-48, 1 TD).
Ozona 46, Forsan 40 — Hayden Bowlin ran for 192 yards and four touchdowns and added 90 more yards through the air, but it wasn’t quite enough to fuel the Buffaloes to an upset win over the Lions.
That’s because Christian Villarreal ran for 411 yards and five touchdowns for Ozona, which built a 30-20 halftime lead and held off a Forsan rally in the second half to improve to 9-0 overall and 4-0 in league play. The standout’s third 400-yard game gave him 3,269 yards and 47 touchdowns rushing for the year, putting him within 776 yards of Texas’ single-season rushing record of 4,045, set by Sugar Land’s Kenneth Hall in 1953.
Forsan 21, Christoval 7 — Hayden Bowlin ran for 183 yards and all three FHS touchdowns to lead the Buffaloes to a two-score win over the Cougars.
Forsan (3-5, 2-1), which also got 56 yards passing and eight yards receiving from Bowlin, limited Christoval to just 150 total yards in stretching a 7-0 halftime lead to two touchdowns by the start of the final period.
Forsan senior Hayden Bowlin had a career night last Friday and picked up our Big Country Preps Player of the Week award in the process.
To begin with, the FHS QB rushed for 280 yards and five scores in last week’s 60-27 win over Colorado City. Aside from that, he threw for 59 yards, he returned a punt 75 yards for a sixth TD and had a 34-yard kickoff return to give him 389 all-purpose yards and 36 of FHS’ points.
Forsan 60, Colorado City 27 — Hayden Bowlin ran for 280 yards and five touchdowns and passed for 59 more yards to lift the Buffaloes to a comfortable win over the Wolves.
Ashton Ellis added 124 yards and two scores for Forsan, which ran for 425 yards as a team in improving to 2-5 overall and 1-1 in district play.
Slowly but surely, the Cooper Cougars have emerged as one of the most explosive teams in the Big Country. And in its latest exploit, CHS rolled up 517 yards in total offense in a 66-16 win over Lubbock Cooper.
At the top of the stat sheet: Cooper quarterback Jaden Carrillo, who hit 18 of 27 throws for 263 yards and six touchdowns. He also rushed 11 times for 80 yards and another score to help the Cougars improve to 4-3 overall and 2-1 in District 2-5A DII.
His six TD passes tied a school record held by Zac Allen and Clayton Nicholas.
Christoval 15, Colorado City 6 — The Cougars only generated 174 yards of total offense, but that was enough thanks to a dominant defensive effort against the Wolves.
Trailing 6-0 after a quarter, Christoval (3-3, 1-0) got a touchdown pass from Ty Debusk in the second quarter to take a 7-6 lead into halftime, before getting another TD throw from the quarterback in the third quarter to put the game away.
The season’s midpoint usually offers little in the way of big-time performances, with most of the area teams taking a bye week prior to the opening of district play.
This year was an exception.
Haskell junior quarterback Haegan Pinkerton delivered an astonishing effort in last week’s 56-42 win over Seymour, that could have taken our weekly accolade at any given point in the season.