Preview of the sports pages

Here’s a preview of what will be on the sports pages of next week’s Vindicator.

From Neal Thornton — The Liberty Panthers lost a heart-breaker Friday night as Splendora’s kicker Kevin Luna drilled a 27-yard field goal with 7 seconds left on the clock to squeeze out a 16-14 victory. The win by the Wildcats was not without controversy as several coaches, fans and at least one reporter thought that Splendora was given a “5th down” at the end of the game. 

From Justin Kelm — The West Hardin Oilers’ game against the Legacy Titans started with the Oilers making a great play on special teams [but] the Titans took over, [and] within two plays, the Titans offense exploded and scored.

The Spurger Pirates volleyball team made their way to Saratoga to battle the West Hardin Fighting Lady Oilers. Both teams went back-and-forth until West Hardin took the seven point lead, 14 to 6. Errors plagued the Pirates during the first set. The Lady Oilers led by seniors dominated in the first set, winning 25 to 15.

From Dennis Warren — Bobcat fans could easily have felt, even through halftime, that the Cats would win. They controlled the line of scrimmage and had several long drives, just the one TD late in the first to take the lead 8-6. That held through the half and then the Lions seemed to find the momentum. The visiting Lions were stopped deep in their own territory and punted to the Cats. The ball rolled, literally, through a Bobcat defenders’ legs and the call was that in that process he had touched it. Kountze recovers and owns the ball at the bobcat 20. From there the Lions completed a two play drive and made the game winning touchdown, 14-8.

From Jerry Michalsky — The Barbers Hill Eagles used three blocked kicks and a big third quarter to knock off the Dayton Broncos 27-0 on Friday night in the 12-5A DII district opener for both teams at Eagle Stadium. The first blocked kick led to the only score of the first half. After picking up a first down on the game's initial possession, Dayton was forced to punt and Barbers Hill's John King-Bradley broke through to block the kick and teammate Charles King picked up the loose pigskin and ran 12 yards for the touchdown to give the Eagles a 6-0 lead with 8:33 left in the opening quarter.

Plus, photos by Angie Jackson, Robert Ward, Amanda Jordan and Justin Kelm.