Sports

It was a tough draw for the Graham tennis team in the first round of the playoffs as the Steers and Lady Blues — who finished fourth in Region 1 District 6 — matched up with the winners of Region 1 District 5 Canyon Randall High.

Graham played hard but came away with the loss to Canyon Randall 0-19 which ended the team’s season. The Raiders proved without a doubt why they had won their district as they didn’t allow the Steers or Lady Blues to win a single match.

The Steers and Lady Blues cross country team ran Tuesday, Oct. 10 in the Region 6 district meet at Stephenville in the final event of the season for most runners.

In the race that mattered the most this year, Graham’s Tyson Weaver finished fifth overall in the varsity boys 5K to advance to the regional meet in Lubbock held in a couple weeks. The top 10 individual finishers in both the boys and girls races advanced to regionals.

It’s not often a football game ends with a score that looks like a low-scoring basketball game but that’s exactly what happened when Newcastle beat Victory Christian Academy (VCA) 75-60 last Friday.

In what was the Bobcats’ toughest test of the season to this point, Newcastle pulled out all the stops and earned the hard-fought win against the No. 1 ranked team in the Texas Christian Athletic Fellowship.

Graham head coach Marci Faulk knew what she was doing when she created the non-district schedule for her Lady Blues team this season. She sought out some of the toughest competition and tournaments she could find to help prepare her team for the rigors of district play.

The Lady Blues lost against Stephenville in four sets last Friday to move to an even 2-2 in the first go-around of district play. Final set scores were 25-27, 21-25, 25-22 and 23-25.

It was a battle from start to finish during the opening game of district play for the Graham Steers against the Hirschi Huskies. Unfortunately, the Steers came out on the wrong side of things and suffered their first loss of the season in a tight matchup 27-26.

After taking a difficult loss in the homecoming game last week, the Lady Blues got back to their winning ways with a clean sweep of the Brownwood Lady Lions on the road. Graham dominated in the game, winning by scores of 25-11, 25-14 and 25-19.

Graham got off to a strong start Tuesday, Oct. 3 and never looked back, as the Lady Blues found an offensive rhythm early. That offense, combined with Brownwood’s own offensive struggles, helped the visiting Lady Blues jump out to a quick lead in the first set.

Both the Graham volleyball and football teams had their homecoming games last Friday, Sept. 29. The football team dominated in a 54-13 win over Old High while the volleyball team took a tough loss to Mineral Wells. But volleyball came back with an easy win Tuesday, Oct. 3 over Brownwood.

For their performances in their respective games, Emilee Gordy of the Lady Blues volleyball team and Zathin Reyes of the Steers football team earned selections as The Graham Leader’s Athletes of the Week for the week of Thursday, Sept. 28 through Wednesday, Oct. 4.

In Graham’s final run before the district meets next week, the cross country teams participated Wednesday, Oct. 4 in the Thrill of the Hill event in Stephenville.

The event was one of the largest of the year for the teams in terms of how many runners ran in each race. Both the boys and girls varsity teams had strong showings and the junior varsity runners had success as well, despite not having enough participants to qualify for the team scores.

The Newcastle Bobcats have done it again. After suffering their first and only loss of the season a couple weeks ago, they’ve now won two games in a row, this one a 48-0 shutout of the Aspermont Hornets.

Through six games this season, the Bobcats have shutout the opposing team three times. The most points they’ve given up in a game excluding the loss is 18, and in that game the offense scored 72. Newcastle is winning on both sides of the ball and crushing opponents in the process. The Friday, Sept. 29 win over the Hornets was no different.

The hype had been built up all week, and frankly, all season for the Steers leading up to their homecoming game Friday, Sept. 29 against Old High of Wichita Falls. It was the last time the two teams would square off against each other as Old High will close its doors at the end of this school year.