By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
At first glance, one wouldn’t have known it was the opening match for both squads.
Hanna and Port Isabel looked in midseason form, and each came out with something to prove. The Lady Golden Eagles were dealing with key injuries to a few starters and the Lady Tarpons looked as strong as ever despite losing most of their starters and a large senior class last year.
The teams fought for every point, but in the end the Lady Tarpons made fewer mistakes and defeated Hanna 25-20, 25-20, 13-25, 25-23 on Tuesday at Port Isabel.
“I expected it to be (back and forth). I knew Hanna was going to come in and be ready. We saw them during a scrimmage, so we knew it would be one of those types of games,” Port Isabel coach Julie Breedlove said. “Our kids came out, and they were focused and ready to go in those first two games. Plus it’s always nice when you can build that lead and build some momentum.”
After Port Isabel won two straight, hard-fought, close games, Hanna wasn’t ready to give up. The Lady Eagles began with a 6-1 run and soon pushed the lead to 16-4. The Lady Tarpons seemed stunned and began to make errors to add to the Hanna run. The Lady Eagles finished off the third game and hoped to keep the momentum going in the fourth game.
“We told them to just keep calm, we have a strong team and a lot of good things going,” Hanna coach Ansgar Hagemann said. “They were picking up more than we were on defense in the first couple of games. I knew we were facing a strong team, they might be 4A, but they play like a 6A.”
Flora Herrera had eight kills, Claudia Gonzalez had four kills and Pam Ellis had four kills and two blocks for Hanna.
Although Breedlove couldn’t explain how Hanna took the momentum away in the third game, she was glad they did.
“Sometimes that’s good because the kids have to work to get out of that,” she said. “I told them to play their game, don’t worry about what happened, but worry about the right here and right now.
“I love for the girls to have to fight like that because it’s not always going to be easy and they have to learn to fight out of those situations.”
Kelcie Swink finished with eight kills and two blocks, and Larissa Torres had 22 assists for Port Isabel.
Hanna continued to play strong, building a 12-3 lead in the fourth game. But the Lady Tarpons began to chip away at the lead, cutting the deficit to three points at 19-16. Port Isabel looked to senior captain Gabby Torres, who finished with 23 kills and had a pair of key blocks to lead the comeback.
Torres responded when the Lady Tarpons needed her most. Hanna was up 23-17 late in the fourth game and was trying to push it to a decisive fifth.
Port Isabel finished the game on an 8-0 run, during which Torres had four kills and a block to fuel the rally for the Lady Tarpons and change the momentum. It was only fitting that another powerful kill from Torres was the game winner when the Lady Eagles failed to return the shot.
“Gabby has worked really hard the last two years and really hard in the offseason,” Breedlove said. “The kids respond well to her, and it takes all of them. It takes those passes to her, but she did come through for us and had a good game.”
Andrew Crum covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6629 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @andrewmcrum.
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