Sports

The Graham Steers and Lady Blues officially turned the corner out of the summer and into the regular season this past week with the start of mandatory practices. 

These were the first official practices that head coach Matt Birdwell was able to head up while trying to shape the roster in preparation for their first slate of official matches right around the corner. 

These first official practices ran from Monday, July 28, through Thursday, July 31, with one main goal being established throughout competition. 

After months of anticipation, the Lady Blues volleyball team has finally turned the corner on the summer offseason and began regular season practices. However, they ended the season with a bang with one final volleyball camp. 

This particular slate of sessions was for the sixth grade through ninth grade girls in the community who wanted to learn more about the sport. 

Interestingly, this camp took place much deeper into the summer season than the Baby Blues volleyball camp, for incoming first through fourth graders, which took place May 13-15.

It’s been another busy summer of athletic camps for athletes in the community. After months of activity across all sports, Graham ends its summer season with one of its biggest activities–football camp. 

The camp took place Monday through Wednesday, July 28-30, and saw participants ranging from grades three through nine participate. 

Overall, the camp had a large turnout which saw days where participants got to as high as 130, which is something that pleased Steers football head coach Clay McChristian. 

Newcastle athletics officially entered its fall schedule with the start of two-a-day practices for volleyball. The district will officially present its newest slate of athletes to the community at their annual Meet The Bobcats event. 

Newcastle football head coach Isiah Archer said that this year's annual event will take place Thursday, Aug. 7, starting at 7 p.m. 

At the event, members of the football, volleyball, cross country and cheerleading teams will be present and introduced to their community and student body alike. 

The Newcastle Ladycats volleyball program has been busy trying to keep its athletes active during the summer offseason.

The program gave its athletes one more dose of that this summer with team volleyball camp. 
This is just the latest step that Newcastle took in order to make sure their girls volleyball doesn’t miss a beat come fall.

The Lady Blues volleyball regular season is very quickly approaching and head coach Marci Faulk is switching things up to begin the year.

One new feature of the coming season is Faulk implementing midnight madness as the first official practice of the season.

“It’s the very first night that UIL allows us (coaches) to legally practice,” Faulk said. “So we’re going to come in that very first minute the season begins and practice, we’re going to kick off our season that way.”

The Graham Lady Blues volleyball team has been active all summer participating in camp and skills practices and summer leagues. The team completed its final evening of summer league at Legacy High School last week.

The final day of the Windthorst summer league took place Thursday, July 24, where the Lady Blues took on Henrietta, Windthorst and Legacy.

Overall, the Lady Blues swept the night winning all three games, making it their second consecutive sweep of the week and finishing their final week of summer league play with a perfect 6-0 record.

This past week was the conclusion of the Windthorst summer league for the Graham Lady Blues varsity volleyball team. 

The Lady Blues got their final week of summer league ball off to a great start going 3-0 during their night at Windthorst ISD. 

The team played Tuesday, July 22, against Henrietta, Archer City and Legacy. 

Kya Cooper got things started off on the right track against Henrietta with an Ace to give Graham a 1-0 lead. 

The Newcastle Ladycats are hard at work ramping up for this upcoming volleyball season. A big step in that direction begins in the coming weeks with official two-a-day practices. 

Two-a-day practices will begin Friday and Saturday, Aug. 1-2, with three hour sessions running from 7-10 a.m. 

These two-day practices will run daily 6-8 a.m. Monday through Thursday, Aug. 4-8, with an additional 4-5:30 p.m. practice Monday and Wednesday, according to Ladycats head coach Ashley Archer. 

While the summer offseason for Graham sports is quickly coming to an end, the community still found the time to get in a few end of season youth camps as the regular season begins. The final of three camps started last week with soccer camp. 

The camp ran from Tuesday, July 22, to Thursday, July 24, at Newton Field. 

Participants from around the community, ranging from first graders to eighth graders were able to participate in the event.