« My brackets are finally garbage | Main | The return of Sound Off »
One crazy week
April 14, 2008I have been meaning to blog a lot more starting last week, but it has been pretty crazy around here in the sports world.
A quick breakdown of what has been going on:
Last Saturday (not a couple of days ago, but the week before that): I was able to get a few minutes to talk with Greg Biffle when he was in town while his pit crew was racing at Red River Speedway.
Biffle told me he expects to be back with Roush Fenway Racing next season and that he thought he would have a pretty good showing in the next day's race (more on that later). He is not a very big guy, but he was very friendly during the interview.
It was pretty neat for RRS to bring his guys out. One of Biffle's pit crew members is Wichitan Ryan Dextraze, who helped set things up.
Last Sunday: Was able to experience my first NASCAR race in person. Drove to Texas Motor Speedway and saw Carl Edwards win for the third time in 2008.
With a media pass, I was able to experience everything -- the pits, the garages, Victory Lane, etc. I am not a huge racing fan (I have probably watched three full races on TV in my whole life) but it was a pretty cool experience.
I wrote my column on Jeff Gordon, who finished last for only the second time in his career. The other was also at TMS, only one of two tracks he has not won at.
As for Biffle, he had some mechanical problems and struggled to 39th place. Not so much of a correct prediction after all.
Tuesday: I did not forget Monday. I was off and was pretty much worthless after a long day at NASCAR (I know, I lead a tough life).
On this day, I traveled to Denton for the 5-4A track meet. Several kids got out to regionals, which is in a couple of weeks in San Angelo.
Rider girls got second, as did the WFHS boys. I think at least a couple of city kids have a great chance of getting to Austin: WFHS high jumper Wade Thornton, who hit a school-record 6-10 in Denton and Rider discus thrower James Chambers, who went a year ago.
The WFHS boys 4x100 has a decent shot, although their time is about a second or less off last year when it went to state. And the Lady Coyotes have two great hurdlers in Alexis Thurmond and Rachel King.
Unfortunately, Saginaw has a couple of really fast girls, one of which just ran the second-fastest ever national outdoor time in the 100. So those WFHS girls have their work cut out for them.
Wednesday-Thursday: Off days spent working on hockey stories, watching Masters, etc.
Friday and Saturday: Covered the Wildcats, who ended up losing their playoff series to Fairbanks in four games.
It was also a big weekend as the Rider girls soccer team advanced all the way to the Class 4A state championship before losing.
Back to hockey. Before the series started, I predicted Fairbanks would win in give games. Wichita Falls had struggled down the stretch, and the Ice Dogs may have the best goalie in the league in Cody Reichard.
Here is what I saw in the 3-1 and 6-3 losses. I think the Wildcats depended on Cardwell, Salazar and Everett to the point that if they failed to score, then Wichita Falls was not probably going to win.
I thought the team played well at times, but was too inconsistent. They probably should have won Game 3, but Reichard played too well.
I think the Ice Dogs were outplayed for the first half of Game 4, but were able to take the lead on a couple of soft goals/breakdowns. The Wildcats never really solved Reichard until they were trailing 5-1 in Game 4.
I totally agree with what Coach Bowkus said in my boss Nick's Sunday column. The Fairbanks goalie was better than Mike Jarboe and it looked like the Wildcats might have peaked too soon. A disappointing end to a great season.
Well, that was my week. Also on Saturday, I was a guest coach during the MSU spring football game. Check out my column in Monday's paper if you want to learn more about that.
Posted by at 12:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
