Sports

Graham is starting to get closer to the turning point of its summer schedule and into offseason practices for the start of the new academic year. 

However, in between two of the high school’s biggest summer camps, football and soccer, they have another yet to conclude with the older session volleyball summer camp. 

The Lady Blues hosted a younger students volleyball camp earlier in the summer in May, which kicked off the season camp schedule. However, the team will be holding another camp for incoming sixth through ninth graders. 

With practices being held this week along with tryouts, the FC Aztecas Graham club soccer program is kicking off with the hopes of growing the skills of area youth.

Graham residents Kristina and Vincent Martin want to help expand the skills of youth soccer in the area with a club program that is local.

The summer season is always a busy time for Graham athletics. 

Graham High School teams have been busy with different summer leagues and Steers and Lady Blues from grade school through incoming high schoolers have participated in various summer camps. 

With so much going on, it’s important to highlight other avenues where athletes have reached success. One shining light this summer season has been the GTX Elite travel basketball team. 

The idea for this team was formulated through previous experiences of coach Corey Gober.

At the end of last week, the Graham Steers football skill position players came back from a long break to participate in their 7on7 state tournament matches at College Station.

While they did not come out of the tournament as champions, they still had a strong showing overall and the team’s coaching staff is happy. 

Just because it’s July doesn’t mean that the Steers or Lady Blues are slowing down in any way when it comes to athletics. 

In fact, this is a perfect time to start ramping sports back up again as the new academic year marches closer. 

That can be seen in the high school’s football camp which takes place just before two-a-day practices for the Graham High School team. 

Football camp is the last youth camp for the Steers taking place this summer. The camp will run from Monday to Wednesday, July 28-30. 

It’s been a busy time for Graham athletics events this summer. As the community enters the month of July, teams and athletes from all age levels have participated in a bevy of summer camps and leagues. 

That’s no different this month as Graham ISD enters the heart of its camp schedule with soccer camp. 

The camp, run by Steers head soccer coach Tim Wankowicz, takes place towards the end of the month Tuesday through Thursday, July 22-24. This camp will be one of three remaining camps during the summer season, followed by football camp and volleyball camp. 

Over the month of June, the Graham Lady Blues and Newcastle Ladycats have been competing in summer league tournament matches hosted at Graham High School. Their final week of games just concluded this week.

Like usual, the games took place Monday, June 24. Both teams faced a bevy of different opponents. The Lady Blues faced off against Burkburnett, Mineral Wells and Breckenridge across their two teams playing. 

The Ladycats on the other hand, took on Breckenridge and Garner. 

The Graham Steers took the momentum from their two wins last week to show out again with a sweep of their two games to close out the final week of summer league basketball. 

The summer league, hosted by Breckenridge in their Athletic and Fine Arts Center, opened with a fresh slate of games Tuesday, June 24. 

The Newcastle Bobcats were once again not in attendance to close out the schedule, leaving the Steers as the lone Young County team. 

This year, the Graham Steers varsity baseball team did something that even pleasantly surprised head coach Allen McGee. 

The team not only reached the postseason in a year where they were not predicted to, but made it one game shy of the state tournament. If they’re looking to make it back to that spot again, the uphill battle just became a higher climb. 

It was a big day for the Graham Steers football lineman. The team had the opportunity to represent their hometown as they competed in the state lineman challenge championships for district 4A. 

The event took place at Hardin-Simmons University in a large tournament Saturday, June 21, with events starting early.

The Steers were busy all morning competing in a bevy of events such as obstacle courses, farmer’s walk, sled pulls, power drives and truck pushes.