Sealy

The Sealy Tiger soccer team is set to open its regular season this weekend in Giddings at a tournament with first-year head coach Joshua Kirton at the helm. Kirton is in his second year of coaching at Sealy High School and assisted on the sidelines intermittently last year where the Tigers embarked on their longest postseason run in program history.

For the most part, the 2021 sports seasons were a refreshing change from the year prior where cancellations and postponements flooded the schedules at the onset of the pandemic. Although things are still not where they were pre-pandemic, this past year of Austin County’s high school sports seemed to start giving everyone a sense of normalcy again.

The Sealy Tiger soccer team lost a 2-0 lead over the Splendora Wildcats within 4:13 in the final minutes of regulation and was eliminated in the regional semifinals in its first fourthround appearance in program history by a 3-2 score April 6 at Cy Park High School.

As only a freshman, Sealy High School alum Madeline Goad and her Blinn Junior College teammates competed in the program’s first appearance at the NJCAA Women’s Golf Championship in Daytona, Fla. in May. The team registered 13th place out of 19 teams at the four-day tournament played at PlantationBay Golf and Country Club.

After appearing in only one game in 2020 and six in the early portion of the 2021 spring season, Sealy High alum and Texas redshirt freshman Justin Eckhardt saw his summer opportunity in California as both a redemption tour and a coming-out party.

The Texas Girls Coaches Association (TGCA) announced award winners for the 2020-2021 school year and two Sealy High School coaches were among the honorees. Danielle Eschenburg was named the cross country sub-varsity coach of the year and Caroline Owen was tabbed as the basketball middle school coach of the year.

Clayton Fritsch, a member of Sealy High School’s Class of 2017 and a redshirt junior at Sam Houston State, took fourth place in the pole vault competition at the NCAA Outdoor National Championship meet in Oregon June 9.

Austin County’s four high schools were well represented at state championships throughout the 2021 calendar year. From powerlifting, to track, to volleyball, to cross country, to football, locals competed against the best of the best this year.

Ed Marcinkiewicz, a former track and field coach at Bellville and Brazos High School and Texas A&M, lost his battle with cancer Friday at the age of 59. Most recently, Marcinkiewicz was part of the broadcast team for BellvilleSports.com where Brahma football and Brahmanette volleyball games are hosted.

The Sealy Tiger track teams hosted the annual Sammy Dierschke Relays at T.J. Mills Stadium and Sealy Junior High School March 11 and came away with both team titles as well as new school records.