Sports

After torrential downpours for much of the week leading up to the annual Texan Baseball Classic, the status of the event hung in the balance.
But thanks to the turf at the Wimberley High School baseball complex, luckily, the majority of the tournament was still able to be played as scheduled.
The Texans finished 2-1 over the three-day event with wins over St. Michael’s and Hondo before losing to Magnolia. Their fourth scheduled contest with Llano ended up being one of the three games that were washed away by the weather.
Cole Spiller got the Texans off to a great start by striking out six batters and surrendering only two earned runs in the Texans’ 5-3 win over Hondo.
Craig Huey had two hits in the contest while Cade Wagner scored a pair of runs.
Kaden Kowalski also had an RBI in the win and Matt Stroman scored a run for the Texans.

The Lady Texan basketball team capped one of the most successful seasons in history by placing eleven players on the District 26 4-A girls’ All-District team.
They were paced by senior captain Maggi Linker, who was named CO-MVP of the league along with Navarro sophomore guard Amber Reneau.
Linker lead the team in many of the scoring categories and was also one of the top defenders in the entire district.
“I thought Maggi deserved to be the Most Valuable Player.” Lady Texans head coach Ted Dydalewiscz said. “She had such a great season so I was extremely disappointed that she had to share that honor.”
Linker, who is bound for Trinity University next fall, was also named to the first team All-District team in volleyball.
Joining Linker on the first team were junior Yancey Gilmore, senior Maengel Gonce and senior post Katelynn Clanton.

The Wimberley Lady Texans softball team looked to be cruising towards an easy road win over rival Navarro.
Leading 8-0 in the fifth inning, they were in the driver’s seat before they endured an uprising that had nothing to do with the weather but was every bit as damaging to their district record.
Unfortunately, Navarro came storming back with eleven runs over the final three innings after taking advantage of five Wimberley errors.
The Panthers (13-7, 2-0) scored a single run in the bottom of the fifth, erupted for seven in the sixth, and then plated three in the seventh.
The stunning come-from-behind win cooled off a red-hot Lady Texans’ squad that owned a six-game winning streak entering the contest after a five-game sweep romp through the Blanco/Johnson City Tournament and a district-opening win over Gonzales.

Happy days are here again.
And not soon enough for a program that was once the high ceiling in which current dynasties like Connecticut are now being measured.
For the first time since 2010, the Frank Erwin Center will be rocking in March without legendary coach Jody Conradt pacing the sidelines.
The Longhorns are a No. 2 seed for the fifth time in program history and is Texas' best NCAA Tournament seed since earning a No. 1 seed in 2004.
No. 7 BYU, No. 10 Missouri and No. 15 Alabama State invade the Erwin Center on Saturday night.
Texas will open up tournament play against Alabama State thirty minutes after the BYU-Missouri match-up which tips at 5:30 pm.
The two first round winners meet on Monday night at a time to be announced.

Both the Texan and Lady Texan golf teams looked poised for a big year. Last week, the Texan golf team placed first out of 19 teams at the Comfort Invitational marking the second straight first place finish for both the team and it’s No. 1 player.
Kellen Gray placed first as a medalist out of more than 100 players with a 73. Gavin Martinez shot 79, Tanner Cervenka and Noah Woods both shot 80 and Cade Stoever shot an 86.
Gray’s round consisted of one eagle and one birdie as he led the Wimberley Texans to another win by a narrow two-stroke victory margin (312 team total). For the second week in a row Gray posted and Eagle on a difficult par five hole.

It may have been hard for some to recognize the Texas State Bobcats in their Sun Belt home opener on Saturday afternoon.
Because they in no way vaguely resembled the same talented squad that pounded No. 24 ranked Texas nearly two weeks ago.
Absolutely nothing worked for the Bobcats’ in their 6-1 loss to a Georgia Southern team picked to finish near the bottom of the Sun Belt heap in most pre-season polls.
Bobcat ace Randi Rupp was erratic at best, while virtually the same explosive Texas State line-up that throttled the Horns back on March 2 couldn’t get out of first gear – squandering several scoring opportunities – and the defense was, well, utterly offensive.

While visiting family in Florida over the weekend, I got an opportunity of a lifetime – especially for a sports fan that doesn’t like to write sports stories. I love to do stories on individual athletes and their abilities, but always felt that my feelings as a fan would interfere with how I was writing about a team, whether I liked them or called them bums.
But I love reading about sports – especially about baseball – this time of year. It’s a perfect game in many ways.
Baseball is played almost every day during the summer and listening to a game on the radio can be done anywhere: working on the car, painting the back deck, anywhere.
But the best part is when you’re tired of working on the car, or painting the deck, you can come in the house and lie back and sleep from the 5th through 7th inning and not miss a thing.

If the game on Tuesday night is any indication, it looks like the 2016 District 28-4A girls soccer title race just got a little more interesting. Last year, the Boerne Lady Greyhounds ran away with the title on their way to the State Tournament in Georgetown. But in 2016, the Lady Texans showed that they will present a challenge for Boerne to be able to do that again by drawing with Boerne 1-1 at Texan Stadium on February 16th.

2015 will always be remembered for the serious floods, but bringing grit and determination to the town both on and off the field, the Texan football team exemplified what the the Gordon Wood Award is all about.
According to the Texas High School Hall of Fame, they filled the qualifications of legendary Texas high school football Coach Gordon Wood.
“Each year this award is presented to an especially noteworthy high school football team that displayed good sportsmanship, the ability to overcome challenges, had the support of its community and achieved success on the field,“ the awards description said.
Each one of the qualifications fulfilled by the Texans.

The Texas State women appeared primed and ready for a shootout with Louisiana-Lafayette.

At least in the first quarter.

But unfortunately, the sloppy, turnover-prone Bobcats played right into the hands of the best defensive squad in the Sun Belt from then on.

Louisiana-Lafayette put on a defensive clinic that cooled off Texas State's offense over the final three quarters and exited Strahan Coliseum with a 59-47 win.

“Honestly, I am very disappointed in our effort today because we went over exactly what they would do in practice this week.” Texas State head coach Zenarae Antoine said. “I think the struggle came in the second half because we knew that we couldn’t turn the ball over. That’s how they get going and when you have 21 turnovers it’s hard to overcome.”