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.
CLYDE — Outgunned athletically, both in terms of size and quickness by Lubbock Estacado, the Stephenville Honey Bees had to fall back on an old standby to win Tuesday’s Region I-4A quarterfinal: team defense.
Though it took the better part of four quarters to achieve it, 10th-ranked Stephenville finally put the Lady Matadors in their rearview mirror, topping Estacado 55-43 at the Clyde High School gym.
Mya Wilson scored 21 points and Lillie Skiles added 11 more to lead Stephenville (32-4), which now advances to the Region I-4A semifinals at Lubbock Christian University where they will face fourth-ranked Canyon (31-3) on Friday at 6:30 p.m.
STEPHENVILLE — One club met its preseason expectations. The other left with something to build on.
Bolstered by a 30-0 second-half run, the Stephenville Yellow Jackets put away Sweetwater, 51-13 in Friday’s Big Country Preps Game of the Week — spoiling the debut of new Mustang coach Russell Lucas,
Ryder Lambert threw for 214 yards and three scores and rushed for two others to lead Stephenville (1-0), which took control of the game with three unanswered touchdowns and a safety in the third quarter.
STEPHENVILLE — Second-year Stephenville girls basketball coach Jason Hodges and his sixth-ranked Honeybees are about to walk into a minefield.
Facing a Region I-4A bracket loaded with quality teams, Hodges and company have done everything they can to prep for the upcoming challenge. It is now time to jump in and hope to survive the chaos.
Sixth-ranked Stephenville will open against either Wichita Falls Hirschi or Burkburnett at 7:30 p.m., on Thursday in Mineral Wells. Pushing well beyond that point is the result Hodges was hoping for through a brutal non-district slate and a difficult district schedule that had SHS battle-hardened weeks in advance.
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LINK … GAME STORY: Stephenville uses lockdown defensive effort to beat rival Brownwood
STEPHENVILLE — Of all the high school football programs in Texas, few produce more electricity among their fan base than the Stephenville Yellow Jackets.
It’s just a given.
SHS is among the most-storied, most obsessed-over programs in the state, posting five state championships and 17 double-digit-win seasons since 1990 .
So what would the impact have been had the COVID-19 pandemic wrecked the Yellow Jackets’ season? This is still a possibility, of course. But perhaps no Texas community would have mourned the loss of pigskin more than this ranching town of 21,000 located in Erath County, where the game has taken on an almost religious status.
A long-standing tradition of success should continue at Stephenville in 2020, courtesy of 20 returning lettermen and six starters back on both sides of the football.
A bone-jarring schedule and a lack of varsity experience at quarterback will be two of the big challenges for the Yellow Jackets to overcome. But the talent level in the SHS camp is notable enough for Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Magazine to rank them No. 11 in Class 4A DI.
“We have a lot of football players who have that Friday-night experience under their belt,” Stephenville coach Sterling Doty said. “We’ve got a good corps group of guys.”
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 Brownwood on Thursday, we stay in District 5-4A Division I with the Stephenville Yellow Jackets. On Saturday, we will take a look at the Wylie Bulldogs followed by the Cooper Cougars on Sunday.
The “What Might Have Been” feature series is Big Country Preps’ effort to celebrate area athletes who have seen their seasons affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. The series will continue through June 15. If you have a suggested story for the “What Might Have Been” series, please contact Big Country Preps at Evan.Ren@BigCountryPreps.com.
Monday will carry the excitement and anticipation of Christmas morning for Stephenville athletic director Jerod Womack.
After not being able to see Yellow Jacket and Honeybee athletes in person for almost three months, Womack and his coaches anxiously await their arrival for the start of UIL-approved summer workouts.
“It’s going to be exciting just to see kids faces,” said Womack, who’s entering his third year running Stephenville’s athletics programs. “As much as you want to high five and hug them, that won’t be part of agenda. But to see their faces and start a new routine, we’re moving in the right direction.”
Stephenville 49, Gatesville 24 — Coach Sterling doty’s Yellow Jackets (5-4, 2-2) piled up 503 yards in total offense, including 386 rushing yards to lock up a playoff berth.
Stephenville will now enjoy a bye week in preparation for the playoffs.
Gatesville (0-9, 0-4) was mathematically eliminated from the playoff hunt with the loss.
Brownwood 49, Gatesville 0 — Reece Rodgers rushed for 215 yards and three scores and Drew Huff threw for 182 yards and three scores to lead Brownwood (7-0, 1-0) which continues to play in a dominating fashion.
The Lion defense posted its third straight shutout and fourth overall while collecting the win.
Brownwood will now move into its bye week, prior to facing archrival Stephenville on Oct. 25.
STEPHENVILLE — Rebuild or reload?
When it comes to perennial power Stephenville, the latter is generally true. But in a season that features a coaching change and 30 lettermen to replace while playing in one of Texas’ toughest 4A districts, the Yellow Jackets may need time to regroup.
Not to say Stephenville won’t be good. The ‘Jackets have two capable quarterbacks in Kade Renfro (100-186, 1,808, 16 TDs) and Cole Stanley (38-96, 720 yards, five TDs). They have an All-Big Country Preps caliber linebacker in Quinton Walker (100 tackles, 6.5 sacks) with a solid defensive line in front of him.
They do, however, have considerable talent to replace as first-year coach Sterling Doty takes over the program.
Facing their third consecutive road game to start the season, the eighth-ranked Stephenville Yellow Jackets marched into Bulldog Stadium and used a dominant defensive performance to take a 41-28 win over Wylie on Friday night.
Stephenville’s defense forced five turnovers in moving to 2-1 on the season, while Wylie dropped to 0-3.
7:30 p.m. Friday at Bulldog Stadium, Abilene
What it means: This is the continuation of what has become a fun rivalry in recent years. The Bulldogs and Yellow Jackets have played seven times in the past eight seasons, with the only gap in that timeline coming in 2013. The teams met in the playoffs in 2012, when Stephenville scored a 59-28 win in the Class 3A Division I state quarterfinals, and the past four meetings had all been district contests, with Wylie taking three of those games. The Jackets hold a 4-3 advantage in the series, winning the 2017 matchup 33-20, but neither team has won more than three games in a row.
7:30 p.m. Friday at J.E. Marr Stadium, City
Argyle 45, Stephenville 35 — The top-ranked Eagles put Stephenville in some uncomfortable situations Friday night, but they couldn’t put the Yellow Jackets away until a fourth-quarter field goal made it a two-score game late.
Argyle bottled up running Krece Nowak like few teams have, holding the senior standout to 56 yards on 16 carries, and the Eagles limited quarterback Cole Stanley to just 13-of-37 passing. But the new Stephenville signal caller hit enough big plays to keep his team in the game, finishing with 304 yards and three touchdowns through the air.
The Jackets, who also got a defensive touchdown from Colton Accomazzo, may see 0-1 on their record, but there’s little reason to be discouraged by their opener. A competitive showing on the road against an elite team shows the type of group they have, and with some improvement, they’ll be a dangerous team come playoff time once again.
7 p.m. Friday at Eagle Stadium, Argyle
Stephenville running back Krece Nowak has accounted for more than 4,000 total yards and 34 touchdowns over the past two seasons. That he achieved those things while listed on the Yellow Jacket roster at 5-foot-8 and 145 pounds isn’t really noteworthy to him.
Nowak has never viewed his size as an impediment, and it’s clear from the production that it hasn’t been.
But balancing Nowak’s playmaking ability with the number of hits he takes is a concern for Stephenville coach Greg Winder. And that will be especially true this fall, when the Yellow Jackets will tackle one of the state’s toughest schedules with a first-year starter at quarterback and a largely unproven receiving corps.
Coming off a 12-3 season that ended with a district championship and a trip to the Class 4A Division I state semifinals, the Stephenville Yellow Jackets enter the 2018 football season with sky-high expectations.
Coach Greg Winder’s team was ranked third in Texas Football magazine’s 4A DI preseason poll and was picked by the publication to win a brutal District 5-4A DI that also includes No. 4 Waco La Vega, No. 14 China Spring, Brownwood and Gatesville.
The fourth-year Stephenville coach isn’t putting much stock in preseason prognostications, however. And while he’s excited about what he brings back — a haul of 23 returning lettermen that includes seven offensive and eight defensive starters — he knows there are questions still to be answered.