This recently concluded season of Lampasas Badger sports was full of unique, exciting and sometimes even strange moments and high-level accomplishments.
I am going to give it my best shot at ranking what I believe were the best moments for the Badgers and Lady Badgers in the 2024-2025 athletic season.
Here are my top 10 highlights from the past year for Lampasas athletics. Football and baseball teams both go three rounds deep in the playoffs. I’m going to start this list pretty simply. Although not a specific moment, this year saw a couple of the most successful seasons in the sports of baseball and football -- at least since I have been with the Dispatch Record over the last four to five years. For the baseball team, the year has gone down as possibly the best season in the program’s history. On the football side, Lampasas went 10-3, finished second in District 4-4A and picked up playoff wins over Pecos and Dumas before falling to Canyon West Plains in the third round.
The Badger baseball team also went into the third round of the playoffs before losing on a heartbreaking walkoff in game three of a three-game series against Lumberton. Lampasas went 24-9-2 on the season for the best record in program history. The team went 10-2 in district play and won two playoff rounds over Gatesville and Giddings.
9 Girls’ basketball double-overtime win over Marble Falls.
My next installment on the list of notable moments came on the hardwood. The Lady Badger basketball team didn’t have the season the coach and players had hoped for, but a heartpounding, double-overtime win over Marble Falls stands out as one of the best individual games of the athletic year.
The Lampasas girls won 40-38 after erasing a six-point, fourth-quarter deficit and going to overtime. Two different buzzer-beater shots were missed by the Lady Badgers at the end of regulation and again at the end of the first overtime.
This was without question a highlight in a difficult season for the Lady Badgers, and at the time it kept the girls’ playoff hopes alive.
8 Powerlifters show out at state meet. Overall, Lampasas sent 10 lifters to the state meet this past season, including six girls and four guys. They didn’t receive medals at the state competition, but there were countless personal and school records broken.
Kingston Middleton broke the school record in the bench press at 455 pounds, a record he had set previously.
Brayden Roberts would then break the school record in bench press later in the event with a 470-pound lift.
Amari Munoz broke the school record in the bench press as well with a 200-pound lift for the 220-pound weight class.
7 Football win over Wimberley. In late September, the Badger football team hosted the Wimberley Texans and picked up a win in an instant classic against a team that had given them trouble in recent years.
In the 35-27 victory, the Badgers jumped out to a 28-14 lead by halftime, and they were able to hold on in the second half.
Looking back on the season, that win served as a building block for what became a great year for Lampasas football.
Quarterback Reed Jerome threw two touchdown passes in the game, and also ran for 154 yards and two more scores.
6 Big comeback win in boys’ basketball. This is likely the most bizarre moment of the entire year, as the Badger basketball team found themselves in a 26-0 hole in the first five or six minutes of a game against Brownwood.
Lampasas would eventually turn that game around over the four quarters and pull out a 73-67 win over the Lions.
Making up a deficit like that was certainly something I had never seen or heard of -- and definitely something a team doesn’t want to make a habit of doing.
Beau Patterson put together a stellar double-double performance to lead the Badgers to the win, as he scored 21 points and pulled down 21 rebounds.
5 Lometa tennis player wins state championship.
Possibly the biggest accomplishment of any athlete in the area this year was the state championship claimed by Lometa High School senior Ivan Oliver Douwsma in tennis.
Douwsma defeated defending boys’ singles state champion Colt Lawrence from Rising Star in straight sets by a score of 7-5, 6-1.
The Hornet completed the tennis season with a record of 33-1. His only defeat came on March 28 in Fredericksburg to the eventual 2A boys’ singles state champion, Leevi Knight of Reagan County.
4 Wrestler earns silver medal at state tournament. Taylor Martell went from the beginning of the district meet up to the state finals without giving up a single point to her opponents in a dominant run that ended with the Lady Badger on the podium at state, where she finished second.
The junior has accomplished several things that will put her down in Lampasas wrestling history. She now has one more year to chase the gold medal that eluded her last season.
Martell has made the state tournament all three years of high school so far, and she has been joined there in the last couple of years by fellow wrestlers Daemian Rivas and Charlie Freese who also made the state tournament.
Freese and Rivas came up just short of making the podium, but both are heading to college to continue their wrestling careers. Rivas is going to Tarleton State University, and Freese is headed to Schreiner University.
3 Baseball playoff walk-off win.
As previously mentioned, the Badger baseball team had some wild moments over the course of the season. The game that stands out most to me is the Kade Landry walkoff victory over Gatesville that sent Lampasas to the second round of the playoffs.
After losing game one of the threegame series in a nine-inning thriller that ended in a Gatesville walkoff, the Badgers hoped to play a doubleheader on Saturday, win both contests and advance to the next round.
They went into the bottom of the seventh inning trailing 1-0. After a couple of runners reached base, Landry drove a ball to the right-field wall that brought in both runs and won the game.
The job wasn’t finished there, as Lampasas then had to win game three -- which they did 4-3 in another heartpounding affair. Those wins became the springboard for a great postseason for the Badgers.
2 Softball walk-off grand slam. With the Lady Badgers’ season on the line in the district finale against Burnet, Madison Magilke stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and her team down one run. She delivered the swing that all softball and baseball players dream about when they are growing up.
Magilke sent a ball over the wall for a walk-off grand slam to beat the Lady Bulldogs and keep the softball season alive. That win put Lampasas in a tie with Jarrell for the final playoff spot.
The Lady Badgers would go on to beat Jarrell in an eventual play-in game and make the playoffs, where they lost a close series with China Spring.
That walk-off grand slam undoubtedly was the best moment of the softball season this year, and the Lady Badgers got to celebrate in the midst of what was a very up-and-down campaign.
1 Benny Rodriguez returns from difficult injury. Rodriguez had been a consistent presence for Badger baseball the past few seasons, and his senior campaign was no different.
What I thought would be his most memorable moment was a walk-off single he hit that beat Burnet at home. But I didn’t know how much things would change after that big moment.
Rodriguez ruptured his appendix the weekend after that Burnet win. He spent four weeks in the hospital and was not cleared medically to return to the ball field until the day before the doubleheader in the second round of the baseball playoffs against Giddings.
In game three of that series, the Badgers were up big, and the game felt secure. The senior stepped to the plate, and the crowd rose to its feet. Rodriguez ripped a ball toward second base and reached in his first appearance since early in district play.
The fans, his teammates and others in attendance exploded with cheers for Rodriguez, and even some tears were shed over that moment.
All the success this athletic program had over the course of the year cannot compare to the emotions felt by a senior who probably thought he had played his final baseball game getting one last shot and delivering for his team.
The celebration of that moment matched or surpassed celebrations of other playoff wins.
The 2024-2025 high school athletics season was certainly one to remember locally. We hope the Badgers and Lady Badgers will make even more memories in their upcoming seasons.
HUNTER KING, Dispatch Record sports editor.
ON THE HUNT BY HUNTER KING