By ROY HESS | THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD
CORPUS CHRISTI — The volleyball season came to a finish all too soon for the Los Fresnos Lady Falcons on Thursday.
Laredo United eliminated the Lady Falcons 25-10, 22-25, 25-18, 25-19 in a Class 6A area-round playoff match at Corpus Christi Ray.
The District 29-6A champion Lady Longhorns (31-5) now advance to the third round next week to play Saturday’s area winner between San Benito and McAllen Rowe. The season is over for District 32-6A runner-up Los Fresnos (27-12).
United’s tall and active front-line players Lauren Arzuaga (19 kills, three blocks), Gabriela Canavati (19 kills, two blocks) and Carolina Medellin (14 kills, two blocks) were just too much for the Lady Falcons to handle, although the Los Fresnos girls made plenty of standout digs to keep the ball alive.
But in the end, it was just not enough against the hard-hitting team that knocked the Lady Falcons out of the playoffs last year in the second round.
“We started off slow (losing the first set 25-10) and we should have picked it up sooner,” said Emma Stambaugh, a junior outside hitter for the Lady Falcons. “We started playing (better) a little too late.
“I’m proud of the girls and everything we’ve done to this point,” Stambaugh added. “We’re going to miss the seniors. The good thing is a lot of our starting lineup is coming back. We’re going to be ready for next year.”
The Lady Longhorns went three rounds in the playoffs last season. Their goal is to advance even farther this time around.
“We’re very happy and very blessed to be going to the third round (again) so we can continue representing our school and our city,” United coach Leticia I. Longoria said. “Our girls have a lot of heart and they have a lot of drive. They’re young (for the most part with only two seniors on the roster), but their heart is just beautiful. They really wanted to make it happen tonight. I’m a lucky coach to be part of this.
“Los Fresnos has a great team,” Longoria added. “It was a great team effort from both teams.”
The Lady Falcons came alive in the second game after trailing early 9-4 and 11-6. They went ahead for good, 15-14, when the Lady Longhorns hit a ball too long. Los Fresnos turned things around and held leads of 19-14, 21-16 and 22-17 before winning the second set 25-22 on a strong hit by Giselle Ibarra that went off a United player and traveled out of bounds.
After Los Fresnos won the second game, it became an even more closely contested battle as the Lady Longhorns quickly realized they weren’t going to be breezing to a sweep. Yet, the Lady Falcons got off to another slow start in the third set and trailed 10-2 and 11-3 before pulling to within 18-14 of the lead.
From there, United pulled away to win the third game 25-18 and go up 2-1 in the match.
There were 11 ties in the fourth game with the last one coming at 15-15. Los Fresnos came within one point twice near the end at 19-18 and 20-19, but then the Lady Longhorns finished with a flourish to win 25-19 and take the match as Medellin recorded a back-line kill and a block on the final two points.
Ibarra, a senior outside hitter, led Los Fresnos with 15 kills and 17 digs. Teammates Stambaugh and Sarah Villarreal each had 10 kills and Villarreal contributed 27 assists. Also for the Lady Falcons, Isis Delgado had 27 digs and 41 service receptions.