Softball tournaments can distort the significance of pitching accomplishments due to inning caps or time limits, rendering perfect games or no-hitters into half-versions of their true selves.
However, there is no denying that tournaments are work, especially for pitchers, and our Big Country Preps Player of the Week, Hamlin southpaw Zoe Moore, earned the accolade with a 4-0 record in the Wichita Falls Sunrise Optimist Tournament last week.
BANGS — The good news for the Bangs Lady Dragons was that they outhit visiting Comanche 12-5 on Friday. Also, Bangs’ starting pitcher, Abby Wolf, carried a no-hitter into the fourth inning before finishing with a five-hitter and nine strikeouts.
The bad news for the Lady Dragons, was that they committed six errors, allowed nine unearned runs and eventually fell 11-10 at home on Friday as Comanche picked up a crucial league win.
Riley Riordan went the distance in the circle and was 1 for 2 with a double, two walks and three runs scored to lead Comanche (13-11, 4-6 District 8-3A), which stays in the playoff hunt with the win.
BANGS — Damien Santillanes was the student last season as an underclassman receiver and linebacker on a senior-laden Bangs Dragons football team. This year, as one of only five Bangs players with significance varsity experience, Santillanes has switched roles to that of teacher.
“The last couple of years, I had older guys to set us straight. I know good people taught me,” said Santillanes, a third-year starter. “Now, I’m one of the guys helping the younger players get on the right path.
“Most of our new guys are up from the JV last year. We talk to them about the faster tempo on the varsity level and about how there will be a lot more fans at the games now. We tell them to focus on doing their job and don’t worry about the fast tempo or the bigger crowds.”
BANGS — Facing one of the biggest, strongest small-school teams in the area on Friday, there was some question if the Bangs Dragons could remain undefeated after squaring off with Hawley on Friday.
The Dragons (4-0) delivered the answer fairly quickly, dominating the Bearcats 39-15 in the Big Country Preps Game of the Week.
Ethan Cortez threw for 238 yards and rushed for 158 and two scores to lead Bangs, which took a 26-7 lead into locker room at the break. Ethan Sanchez led the Dragons in scoring, rushing for 95 yards and four touchdowns on 13 carries.
Jacee Miller isn’t used to watching the action from afar.
The Bangs junior is a four-sport standout who has been on varsity since she began high school. Miller never leaves the floor for the Lady Dragons’ volleyball team.
But after snapping her fibula and tearing a ligament during a summer trip to the beach, the vocal Miller has been forced to do all her encouraging and observing from the sidelines.
“It’s a very different perspective,” Miller said. “Watching my team grow and watching its up and downs has helped me see what I can do when I come back.”
Football is fast approaching, and we at BigCountryPreps.com are committed to bringing you the information you need to prepare for your favorite team’s season.
We’ll be releasing our Big Country Preps Preseason Football Preview, the most comprehensive look at the upcoming Big Country football season anywhere, on Friday, Aug. 14. But you won’t have to wait until then to sate your gridiron appetite.
Leading up to the first day of fall football practice on Aug. 3, we’ll be spotlighting each 11-man team in the area and posing some of the key questions they’ll face in 2019 as part of our “Countdown to Two-a-Days” series.
After featuring Ballinger on Monday, we stay in District 2-3A Division II with the Bangs Dragons. On Wednesday, we will take a look at the Brady Bulldogs followed by the Coahoma Bulldogs on Thursday.
One could say it gives a football coach a bird’s-eye view.
Others compare it to the overhead view of the gridiron that one gets while playing a video game — displaying a play’s full development on both sides of the football.
At any rate, the soft hum one hears on the Bangs practice field represents a high tech coaching aide used by a growing number of schools nationwide: a drone, armed with a camera and operated by a student manager, allows coach Kyle Maxfield to quickly dissect what went right (or wrong) with every single practice play during film study.
After his sudden and unexpected departure from Brownwood to take the Bangs job in February, coach Kyle Maxfield put himself in a position to build a program from the ground up.
The bad news was that he was inheriting a club that went 0-10 in 2017. The good news was that there was only one direction the program could go, and it will have Maxfield’s fingerprints all over it as it begins to progress.