Fayetteville baseball player Chance Konvicka is just one of many bright, young stars for a loaded Lions team that is on pace to defend their 2021 state title. In a 13-0 series-clinching playoff win vs. Round Top-Carmine, Konvicka threw a nohitter as a freshman.

“I wanted to run in college and they talked to me after regionals. Had a couple other teams looking at me but UT-Tyler stood out the most, a good D-II school with a nice campus.” – Gerald Rodriguez, recruited to run the 800 & 400 meters “I went up there and visited.

After byes in the first two rounds, Wednesday marked the first postseason action since last year’s state title game for the Fayetteville Lions. And the defending state champs look as good as ever – and not at all satisfied.

The Flatonia Bulldogs played an epic three-game regional quarterfinal playoff series against Mumford last week, but Flatonia came up just short. After the two teams traded wins in Games 1 and 2, Mumford won Game 3 by a 6-5 score to advance to play Refugio in the regional semis.

The Fayetteville baseball team beat Round Top-Carmine in both ends of a 1A regional semifinal playoff doubleheader Wednesday in Brenham. The Lions won the first game 7-3 on the strength of a Reid Gross complete game. Then in the night game, Fayetteville won 13-0 as freshman pitcher Chance Konvicka hurled a no-hitter. Fayetteville, the defending state champs, now advances to the regional finals, where they will play either Knippa or D’Hanis. Above, Gross slides in for a run in Game 2. Right, Konvicka pitching during his no-hitter. Much more coverage of this series in the next edition. Photos by Jeff Wick

Flatonia freshman baseball player Titan Targac is a multisport athlete who does damage in all aspects. In Flatonia’s most recent playoff baseball run, Targac blasted a 380 foot grand slam and followed it up by tossing a perfect game on the hill in the next round.

Peewee Softball 7u District: 1) Gentry Robbins 2) Harper Pittman 3) Krislee Kallus 4) Lillian Brugger 5) Devyn York 6) Parker Hatfield 7) McKinley Klesel 8) Emerli Wolff 9) Hailey Faldyn 10) Everly Herbrich 11) Arianna Villanueva Manager: Morgan York Peewee Softball 8u District: 1) Berkley Hall 2) Audelia Gutierrez 3) Braylee Hutchison 4) Eleanor Schmidt 5) Makayden Smidovec 6) Henley Sodek 7) Emery Fricke 8) Grace Embesi 9) Skarlet Schielack 10) Ariana Marulanda 11) Riley Herbrich Manager: Joey Smidovec Minor Softball 10u International: 1) Brooklyn Pool 2) Taylyn Newton 3) Reygan Hutchison 4) Lara Hermes 5) Jansyn Stork 6) Carly Michalsky 7) Kaylyn Beseda 8) Leah Gulash 9) Annabelle Chovanetz 10) Kaisley Dahse Manager: Justin Dahse Peewee Baseball 7u District: 1) Julius Williams 2) Bowen Williams 3) Jacoby Zaruba 4) Sawyer Smith 5) Liam Cowen 6) Connor Paden 7) Luke Shaw 8) Jax Johnson 9) Declan Shaw 10) Bohen Schielack Manager: James Zaruba Peewee Baseball 8u District: 1) Everett Ulrich 2) Amari Rhodes 3) Dwight Peschke 4) Luke Zbranek 5) Jack Lloyd 6) Watson Shaw 7) Sean Michael Wallace 8) Jett Fajkus 9) Wyatt Sneed 10) Hank Gaertner 11) Nicholas Lappert Manager: Shane Lloyd Minor Baseball 9u District: 1) Styne Schramm 2) Jacob Kellen 3) Carson Muesse 4) Kooper Kirts 5) Cody Cernosek 6) Maddox Kleiber 7) Heath Kaspar 8) Anderson Bishop 9) Austin Smith 10) Zach Kocian 11) Cooper Adams Manager: Russell Muesse Minor Baseball 10u International: 1) Jace Hayek 2) Styne Schramm 3) Jacob Kellen 4) Ethan Keilers 5) Kooper Kirts 6) Cody Cernosek 7) Maddox Kleiber 8) Vincent Shaw 9) Heath Kaspar 10) Anderson Bishop 11) Mason Harbers Manager: Ryan Kleiber Major Baseball 12u International: 1) Caleb Knapik 2) Shepherd Gunn 3) Brodie Kelly 4) Connor Fricke 5) Lukas Lenhart 6) Tucker Stark 7) Tanner Jurecka 8) Everett Cook 9) Hunter Melton 10) Aiden Harbers 11) Micah Gordon 12) Caden Tovey 13) Dylan Henneke Manager: Jonathan Cook.

It was a very busy state track meet Saturday for Round Top-Carmine senior Ilse Salinas. She won state bronze in the 1A long jump with a leap of 17-feet, 0.25-inches. She was fifth in the triple jump with a leap of 35-feet, 9-inches. Then she was seventh in the 100 meters with a time of 12.74 and finally fifth in the 200 meters with a time of 26.64.

Round Top-Carmine senior Ilse Salinas was the bronze medalist in the 1A girls long jump at Saturday’s state track meet. She leaped 17-feet, 0.25-inches, just 3.25-inches shy of Kaegen James, of Irion County, who won the state title. Photo by Jeff Wick

Rusk Eliminates Leps Again The La Grange baseball team saw its season come to an end at the hands of defending state runner-up Rusk Friday in a doubleheader loss in the area round of the 4A playoffs. This marks the second consecutive season Rusk eliminated the Leps in this round, and the same two hurlers were responsible both seasons.