Jim Ned 32, Breckenridge 25 — Troy Doran rushed for 182 yards and a score and the Jim Ned defense forced two costly Breckenridge turnovers to secure a huge win on the road.
With standout Breckenridge two-way player Jerry Lawson out with an injury, the Indians too full advantage of his absence on both sides of the ball.
If you watched Jim Ned’s Avery Vinson play volleyball for the first time, you’d notice a few things about the junior.
She never comes off the court. The six-rotation standout helps the Lady Indians as an outside hitter while sharing setting duties with Kate Bryant.
She has really good hands, which is one reason she leads Jim Ned with 478 assists. She’s also a lefty, which adds another dimension to the Lady Indians’ attack.
Perhaps you’d notice the passion Vinson has for the game and how she’s become more of a leader this year.
Snyder quarterback Easton Stewart barely makes a dent when he steps on the scale, standing in at 5-foot-8 and only 140 pounds. But the SHS junior was plenty big enough to lead the Tigers to a 35-21 upset over Graham last week at Tiger Stadium.
Our BCP Player of the Week connected on 27 of 34 pass attempts for 282 yards and five scores and rushed for an additional 30 to lead the Tigers (3-5, 1-1) to a crucial victory.
Jim Ned 28, Clyde 21 — Troy Doran rushed for 190 yards and three scores and threw for 79 yards and another TD to lift Jim Ned (4-3, 2-0) to its fourth straight win.
Leading 21-14 with 7:21 left in the game, Doran scored what proved to be the game-winner on a 5-yard keeper
Jim Ned 48, Bowie 18 — Brayden Shipman rushed for 124 yards and two scores and Troy Doran threw for 114 yards and two more TDs and Jim Ned won its district opener.
Leading 27-12 heading into the final quarter, the Indians put the game away with three touchdowns over the final 12 minutes.
It was Jim Ned’s third straight win following an injury-plagued 0-3 start.
Jim Ned is still Jim Ned.
That’s the message coach Matt Fanning is confident his Indians will convey as District 3-3A Division I kicks off this week.
After an injury-riddled start to their season that included three consecutive losses, Jim Ned (2-3) closed out non-district with a pair of victories. The Indians look to keep that momentum going into Friday night’s 3-3A debut at Bowie.
“Our kids understood at the time – they’re savvy football players,” Fanning said. “We’re still Jim Ned. We weathered the storm and got some younger guys lots of reps.”
Photos by Meredith Goodwin
Is versatile Jim Ned senior Kate Bryant better as an outside hitter or as a setter?
It’s a question that leaves Lady Indians volleyball coach Miranda Garcia stumped upon reflection.
“Ooohh that’s a tough one. She has always been a great setter, always had great hands, even in middle school,” Garcia said. “Her hitting has really come along since her sophomore year. She wanted to be an outside hitter since middle school, so she’s really been working on hitting.”
Some people in the Big Country may not even know where tiny Three Way High School is.
For the record it’s on the outskirts of Stephenville, it plays in District 11-1A DI (six-man) and if our Big Country Preps Player of the Week has any say about it, you’ll be hearing a lot more about the Braves in the near future.
Colt Berry, a senior spreadback, had an eye-popping performance last week in a 73-54 win over Aquilla, amassing 561 all-purpose yards to help the Braves (1-3) to their first win of the year.
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Veribest-Jim Ned volleyball (33 images)”
TUSCOLA — The Jim Ned volleyball team, which has only lost one match since Aug. 23, has not been afraid to play outside their classification in order to get stronger heading into district play.
Last week, that meant the Lady Indians hit the road and played up three classifications, getting swept by Class 6A Midland Legacy, before playing down two classes on Tuesday night in a classic trap game against Class 1A Veribest — which entered the match at Bill Thornton Arena as the fourth-ranked team in the state.
Through three sets against the Lady Falcons, it looked like the trap was in full effect and the Lady Indians were looking ahead to their district opener against San Angelo Grape Creek. In the fourth set, though, Avery Vinson took over and led the Lady Indians to a thrilling 25-21, 23-25, 23-25, 25-11, 15-12 come-from-behind win as Jim Ned improved to 14-1 in its last 15 matches, having lost only seven sets in that span.
LAST WEEK: 51-10, .836
SEASON TOTAL: 131-42, .757
Football picks are something I take pride in and it irritates me to no end when I stink it up. So let’s just say, I burned some midnight oil to get that situation corrected last week.
As a result, the column recovered with a solid .836 percentage in Week 3, salvaging my bruised ego after a disastrous Week 2 tally. In all, 51 of 61 area picks hit the mark last week, elevating my season’s record above 75 percent.
That’s more like it.
Week 4 in the meantime, presents a lineup of some of the most difficult area picks we’ve had this season — including an explosive Glen Rose team facing Brownwood in our BCP Game of the Week. Let’s dive in, shall we?
Here’s this week’s forecast:
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Continue reading “PHOTO GALLERY: Jim Ned-Hawley football (41 images)”
HAWLEY — With nine players out of the lineup due to injuries, the Jim Ned Indians arrived at Hawley for the Big Country Preps Game of the Week with a lot of fresh faces seeing their first varsity playing time on Friday.
They left with a 30-7 loss to a seasoned Hawley club that was executing from the outset.
Rodey Hooper threw for 166 yards and two scores and Austin Cumpton rushed for 99 yards and two more TDs to lift Hawley (1-0), which had built a 24-0 lead by the end of the third quarter.
“We feel good about how we executed, but we’ve got a lot of stuff we’ve got to fix,” said Hawley coach Mitch Ables, whose team overcame 12 penalties for 100 yards to get the win. “We had too many false starts and it seemed once we’d get going, we’d shoot ourselves in the foot.
“Hopefully, the film sessions on Saturday will help out with that and we’ll get better.”
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 10 quarterbacks with a list of others to watch in 2022.
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 10 with a list of others to watch in 2022. Don’t forget to check in Thursday when we conclude our series with the top 10 area quarterbacks.
We hope you enjoy tonight’s 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 Tuesday with the linemen, we now shift our attention to the playmakers on the perimeter, ranking our top 10 wideouts/tight ends with a list of others to watch in 2022.
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 10 offensive linemen with a list of others to watch in 2022.
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 eight kickers and top eight 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 2022 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-10 defensive backs and others to look out for in 2022.
We hope you enjoy our list.
After taking a look at the Big Country’s top defensive linemen on Saturday, it’s now time to examine those who will backing them in 2022.
Continuing with Big Country Preps’ eight-part preseason position rankings series, here’s our top 10 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 2022.
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 10 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.
Without further ado, it is time for us to make our Big Country predictions, district-by-district.
This is the culmination of several weeks of research and two solid months of summertime labor, so we’re more than ready to post it.
TUSCOLA — After helping Jim Ned win a Class 3A DI state championship as a sophomore in 2020, Jim Ned running back-linebacker Sergio Hernandez couldn’t wait for another shot at a state title.
He was one of the biggest overall contributors to 8-0 start last season, playing a key role in Jim Ned’s defense while giving the Indians an additional backfield option to All-Big Country Preps running back Xavier Wishert.
That is, until a Week 9 game against Breckenridge when something unfortunate intervened — a “Lisfranc” injury. Which, according to orthobullets.com “is a tarsometatarsal fracture dislocation characterized by traumatic disruption between the articulation of the medial cuneiform and base of the second metatarsal.”
In layman’s terms: A broken foot.
TUSCOLA — To say that graduation took the most talented group of athletes in school history from Jim Ned, is no understatement.
No fewer than seven Jim Ned football players from last season’s team will be playing ball collegiately, five of them in football uniforms and another two will be playing baseball.
The class of ’22 made a three-season contribution to the greatest five-year run in school history that saw Jim Ned post a 51-12 overall record. This included a 33-6 mark between 2019-2021 and a Class 3A DI state title in 2020, with the Class of ’22 leading the way.
The age-old question for Jim Ned at this point is: Will the Indians rebuild or simply reload? And there are reasons to believe it will be the latter.
Breckenridge (5-0) — The Buckaroos were idle on Friday night but will see action again on Oct. 7 when they travel to Iowa Park in the district opener for both clubs.