Sports

A strong rally in the final minutes of a home game on Tuesday came up just short of Fort Worth Eastern Hills, 35-33, to drop the Ennis Lady Lions to 1-3 on the season.

Ferris closed out the 2021 season with a tough, Class 4A, Bi-District playoff to Sunnyvale, 41-27, last Friday at Mesquite Memorial Stadium.

Senior Emily Gilstrap, shown here setting up Ja’Mya Williams for a kill, led the team in assists and service aces, not to mention leadership. She was named to the All-State Academic Team, the pinnacle for athletes.

No. 3 ranked Ennis (11-0) controlled the first half with an impressive defensive performance and held off Denison (7-4) to claim a 47-25 bidistrict victory that was closer than the score indicated.

Italy (9-2) manhandled upstart Hamilton (6-5), 44-13, at Waco Robinson’s Robinson Field on a cool Thursday night.

A slow start only delayed the inevitable as Palmer led from the outset and pulled away to thump Whitewright, 32-7, at Nevada Community H.S.

Tough decisions are seldom made on the spot. Italy veteran volleyball HC Shauna Steinmetz has come to, like Brooks & Dunn sang in Red Dirt Road, “turning the corner in my soul,”

Extending their mastery over Corsicana (6-4) to seven-straight, No. 4 ranked Ennis (10-0) flattened the visiting Tigers in a 48-0 victory in the regular season-finale for both teams.

Ferris (24-9) was the lone Big 5 Bi-District volleyball winner on Tuesday. They flattened North Dallas, 3-0, at Forester Fieldhouse in Mesquite.

Italy volleyball enjoyed a starryeyed 15-4 start only to end their season prematurely with a 3-0 upset defeat at the hands of a feisty Wolfe City team at Kaufman on Tuesday.