When rain threatened to wash out Friday night football last week, Albany and Cross Plains coaches scrambled to reschedule. What started as a simple forecast adjustment quickly turned into a community effort—complete with makeshift referees, borrowed shirts, and a few laughs along the way.

On Wednesday morning, Albany head coach Denney Faith and Cross Plains coach Jared Sanderson agreed to move the varsity game to Thursday night and the junior high and JV games to Wednesday to beat the approaching storms. The only hitch: no officials were available for the Wednesday matchups.

Albany senior Chance Stewart will compete at the UIL State Cross Country Meet this Saturday, Nov. 1, in Round Rock, aiming to improve on his top-10 finish at the Region 2-2A meet in Arlington on Oct. 21. Stewart posted his best time of the season, 17:18, to secure seventh place and earn his third consecutive trip to the state meet.

“Right now, Chance is going in with the 17th-best time for Class 2A,” Albany coach Ryder Peacock said. “Seventeen seconds separate seventh place from 17th, so he’s not far off the top seven going into state.”

The Book of Books

A Baird man who led law enforcement on a high-speed chase and sparked a large-scale manhunt through Albany in January has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, while other charges related to the incident remain pending in Shackelford County.

Micheal Z. Haley, 38, of Baird, received the sentence after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The charge stems from a January 30 pursuit that began east of Abilene and ended with Haley’s arrest north of Albany following several hours of searching by law enforcement.