By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
Hanna took control early but didn’t hold off Edinburg High in the end.
The Lady Golden Eagles took Game 1, but the Lady Bobcats got momentum and held off a gutsy Hanna squad 20-25, 25-22, 25-22, 25-18 in a Class 6A bi-district playoff match Tuesday at Hanna.
Hanna (26-14) came out sharp, jumping out to a 5-1 lead, and pushed it to 10-4 on a pair of kills by Lauren Webb. Edinburg High (32-7) tied the match at 11, and the teams battled back and forth from there.
With the Lady Eagles leading 20-16, Pamela Ellis had back-to-back aces and Bianca Olivares had a kill, and the momentum lasted until the end as Hanna took a 1-0 lead.
“The Hanna gym is its own animal, and the fans have a lot of spirit like our school does,” Edinburg High coach Deanna Dominguez said. “It’s an original high school vs. another original high school. Their fans came to support and be loud, and I think it rattled our kids a little bit.
“Once we were able to refocus, we made a couple of adjustments, we were able to bounce back.”
The Lady Bobcats shook it off and built a 4-1 lead in Game 2. Once again, the teams battled point-for-point and were tied at 22. A pair of kills by Tianna Howard fueled the fire as Edinburg High took Game 2 to tie the match at 1.
“I think we played well all four games,” Hanna coach Ansgar Hagemann said. “It was clean, it was mean, it was good, that’s how we wanted to play. But they fixed everything and played the perfect match most of the time (after that).”
Game 3 was no different, as neither team seemed to pull away. Hanna took a late lead at 21-20 on the strength of several blocks and kills from Ellis. But the Lady Bobcats received a kill from Breanna Pena to tie the game at 21.
Natalie Martinez followed with a block on the next point, and Amber Reyes added another kill as the Lady Bobcats pulled away to take a 2-1 lead.
Hanna started Game 4 strong, but Edinburg High kept matching it point-for-point. Ellis brought the Lady Eagles back with a kill to tie the game at 13. Marissa Arce had a pair of kills to push the Lady Bobcats ahead.
Ellis added a pair of kills and Sausha Rae Brown had a block to pull Hanna within 18-17, but too many errors by the Lady Eagles and three kills down the stretch from Pena sealed the game and the match for Edinburg High.
Hagemann was impressed with the way Edinburg High consistently picked up his team’s attacks.
“They picked up our hits, three and four attempts in a row,” he said. “I hand it to their defense. We always have very tight matches with them, just very close games, none more than a couple points either way.”
Ellis led the way with 18 kills and seven blocks for Hanna. Olivares had 12 assists, three kills and one block, and Brown, Webb, and Gianna Muniz combined for 11 kills, three blocks and six assists for the Lady Eagles.
Dominguez expected a very close match as well but gave credit to the Lady Eagles for the tough match.
“It was point-for-point and tight games,” she said. “We wanted to keep our stronger rotations alive and try to minimize the amount of points we were giving away. Once we settled down, we found our groove and we were able to play smarter.
“Congratulations to Coach Hagemann he does a great job year after year. Pamela Ellis is a great athlete, and (Hanna) did a good job.”
Howard led Edinburg High with 20 kills and six blocks, Pena had 13 kills, Reyes had nine kills and two blocks, and Dezi Marmolejo had nine kills, three blocks and 36 assists for the Lady Bobcats.
Hagemann was disappointed to see the season end abruptly.
“They had an awesome district record this year,” he said. “They played an awesome season. We won a few tournaments, went to the playoffs (in) back-to-back (seasons). Sometimes you need a little bit of luck, and we didn’t have that (Tuesday).”
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.