Sports

The swimming and diving program at Dripping Springs High School has been kept to a high standard under the direction of first-year head coach Michael Hoskovec.

The DSMS Lady Tigers basketball season has ended. They completed the regular season with Sycamore Springs and then played a district tourney. One weekend was reserved for the B-teams and the next week the A-teams. The results of the A-team tourney were not available at press time.

The Lady Tigers basketball team was able to play with less pressure allowing them to have success. This was the case in the 73-21 win over Lehman. Although the Lady Lobos are experiencing a winless season, they were still providing opposition to work against. Coach Batson substituted freely and everyone was able to get quality time and practice. What was encouraging was the players worked the ball much better and were looking for the open player. The more a player practices the correct moves the better they get at it and can perform the same maneuver against better teams. Practice makes perfect. Still left to work on is quality shooting skills for higher percentage accuracy. That won't come without extra gym time doing it correctly.

For the second year in a row, weather will delay the start of the Dripping Springs High School Boys Lacrosse season. After a couple of cancellations this past weekend, the Tigers will kick off their season this Wednesday night against Smithson Valley. The program, led by Coach Bill Cafferata in his 9th season at DSHS, returns 7 seniors and 8 juniors from a team that went 9-6, including a playoff win against Memorial.

It is pretty well accepted that to be successful one must be able to finish games. Does not make much difference how well you played before. The Tigers are struggling to do just that. At the present it has been the fateful fourth. It does not take much. In talking with Coach Swannack before the last game, he said early on they realized they would not be able to stay in high-scoring games. So their strategy would be to keep the scores low so they would be in the running when it came down to the end. They have been doing that but it is the finish that usually does them in. Their 57-43 loss to Alamo Heights and a 47-34 loss to Veterans Memorial attest to that.

What can you say? Your team has led the game from the very beginning by as much as twelve points late into the third and by ten starting the fourth. The lead melted away until tied at 42 with 48 seconds remaining. DS added a free throw at 25 to go ahead only to have Alamo Heights put up a long three that hit nothing but net and their first lead with ten seconds left. The Lady Tigers got an attempt off and was fouled with less than a second left. A chance to tie and go to OT. However, the second free throw bounced harmlessly off the rim and the Lady Tigers suffered a cruel 44- 45 loss.

Last year New Braunfels Canyon and Boerne Champion provided the Dripping Springs soccer teams their best tests in district play. All the more reason to be a little nervous entering those contests. After the smoke had cleared there was little reason to worry this time around. Both state-ranked teams took care of business in a big way.

The DSMS Lady Tigers got back into action with home games against Bee Caves MS. Bee Caves was only able to put together three games as there was not enough players for their 8B team. At the end of the night the Lady Tigers took all three games.

The two state-ranked Dripping Springs soccer teams continue to dominate their opposition and give indication they will have to be dealt with again this season. In the world of soccer, scores usually are hard to come by. If teams score more than twice it usually means that team is really good or they are playing much weaker teams. We choose very good. Hat tricks (scoring three or more goals in a game) by players are becoming common. Each of the two teams won their respective tourneys with ease, including their district openers with Hays Johnson. As per usual, soccer teams have to endure the inclement weather as much as their opponents.

Seldom do sports teams get judged by the beauty of their games played, only wins count. Unfortunately the Tiger basketball team played in an ugly contest with league-leading Boerne Champion but still could not win ugly. It was another key game that could have been a win but ended up being a 34-26 loss.

Athletes in Dripping Springs are often honored with accolades like All-District. On occasion, someone will reach the heights of All-State. Adam Knutson just took that to an entirely different level.

Close still only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. The Lady Tigers basketball team continues to find that out as they can not quite get over the scoring hump to win their games. Whatever the ingredients, they have been unable to get the door open for another victory and time is running out to get in the playoffs. They lost valuable ground when they dropped a 47-42 decision to Kerrville Tivy, a team in the top three, and a 66-65 loss to Hays Johnson, a team they defeated in the first round. District standings: Canyon 9-0, Boerne Champion 7-2, Kerrville 6-2, Seguin 7-3, Johnson 4-5, DS 3-6, Veterans Memorial 2-5, Alamo Heights 1-8, Lehman 0-8.