By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
ELSA — The Brownsville Veterans Memorial volleyball team entered the Edcouch-Elsa gym Saturday as serious as could be with its game face on for an important District 32-5A match against the always tough Lady Yellowjackets.
The Lady Chargers exited the building a few hours later all smiles. In between, there were plenty of tense, anxious moments in the back-and-forth, closely contested match between 32-5A co-leaders.
E-E is always a difficult place to play regardless of the sport. On this day, before a lively, vocal crowd, the Lady Chargers emerged with a hard-fought 25-21, 27-25, 23-25, 29-27 victory to become sole owners of the district lead at 3-0.
Even though the Lady Jackets came out on the short end of the first two games, they never gave up, and from the outset it was a match every bit as close as the score indicated.
“We went five games (at home) against them last year in non-district and that was when we had a really good team, so I knew it would be very tough today, and that’s what I told our girls,” Lady Chargers coach Lisa Mares said. “After we won the first two games, I told the girls we just couldn’t expect them to hand the match over to us, and they didn’t.
“When we lost that third game, I said, ‘What did I tell you guys?’” Mares added. “Right before the fourth game, I asked them, ‘So do you want to go to a fifth game (if we lose this fourth set)?’ Show me that you guys want it more. I wanted them to play with urgency because every point matters. Finally at the end I’m glad they put it away (in four games).”
With the Lady Chargers leading the match 2-0, the score was tied at 23 in the third game before E-E came up with a kill to go ahead 24-23 and won 25-23 when Brownsville Veterans failed to return a volley.
The two teams then went to a fourth game where there were 13 ties, including deadlocks in the score at 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27. Neither team could gain enough of an advantage to close out the set. Finally, an unforced hitting error by the Lady Yellowjackets gave the Lady Chargers a 28-27 edge and Brownsville Veterans quickly followed up on the next point with the win to clinch the match as Victoria Huerta sent a strong ball over the net that went off an E-E player and carried out of bounds for a 29-27 score.
The Lady Chargers are now 18-12 overall and 3-0 in district, while E-E is now 15-12 and 2-1.
Bridget Himes led the Lady Chargers with 15 kills. She also had two aces and one block. Huerta added 11 kills and nine digs, while Cassandra Valdez had five kills, 45 assists, six aces and 21 digs. Also for Brownsville Veterans, libero Paola Villarreal finished with 33 digs and Rebecca Cardenas had five kills and four blocks.
For E-E, Paloma Ybarra finished with 11 kills, five digs and three blocks while Sieanna Ortiz added seven kills, six digs, three blocks and two assists. Also for E-E, Ale Martinez had four kills, 11 blocks, three digs and one ace. Jackie De Los Santos contributed 20 assists with 11 digs while libero Jackie Alvarado finished with 30 digs.
Roy Hess covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @HessRgehess