By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
Dolores Olguin-Trevino became frustrated some time ago when she was unable to enter her St. Joseph Academy volleyball team into any of the tournaments taking place this weekend in the Rio Grande Valley.
As a result, the SJA coach created her own two-day, 11-team tournament starting at 1 p.m. Friday with the Lady Bloodhounds as hosts. The championship match is scheduled at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
The Lady Bloodhounds are playing their first season of varsity volleyball.
Along with SJA, other teams in the tournament are Athlos Leadership Academy, Brownsville First Baptist, Brownsville IDEA Frontier, IDEA Donna, IDEA San Juan, Santa Maria, Santa Rosa, San Perlita, La Villa and Juan Diego Academy.
“It’s a small tourney, but I think the teams coming are pretty competitive,” Olguin-Trevino said. “(This season) I’ve only seen one, Athlos, but I played some of these schools last year, and they were good.
“I would like my team to come away (from this tournament) with the knowledge that they can compete with any team they encounter if they communicate, play united and put in the work prior to the competition,” she added. “We’re not necessarily very tall, and we’re young, but if my girls go out and play like I’ve seen them play, we could have a chance of getting into the championship match.”
One of the tournament favorites figures to be Santa Rosa. The Lady Warriors took fourth place behind Hanna, PSJA Southwest and Corpus Christi Carroll at last weekend’s Volley at the Beach Tournament in Port Isabel.
BENEFICIAL
It’s been quite some time since the Los Fresnos Lady Falcons went to a volleyball tournament and came away with no wins to show for their efforts.
That happened last weekend for the Lady Falcons at the Northeast ISD Invitational Tournament in San Antonio.
But veteran coach Becky Woods is not fretting over her team’s participation in its latest tournament. Instead, she said the experience was an eye-opener that should help the Lady Falcons become more motivated and focused as they soon go after a record-setting fifth consecutive conference title in District 32-6A.
“Yes, it was very beneficial,” Woods said of the Alamo City trip. “We needed that going into our matches at the Sharyland Tournament and then starting district. I’m getting my injured players back one at a time, and just in time, which will be a great asset to the team. Maybe now all of our injuries are over for the season and we can get down to business.
“We are going for a fifth straight district title and my girls are excited,” Woods added. “They want to be the first team (at our school) to do it. We have to play each match one at a time and not look beyond that.”
The Lady Falcons improved to 11-6 on the season with Tuesday’s 25-10, 25-15, 25-15 non-district win at Porter.
HERE, THERE, EVERYWHERE
Metro-area teams are traveling to various locations for tournaments this weekend.
The most popular destination appears to be the Sharyland Tournament starting today where Los Fresnos, Rivera, Pace, Porter and Hanna are entered.
Also from the Metro-area and entered in out-of-Brownsville tournaments are the Lopez Lady Lobos at the Hidalgo Tournament and the Brownsville Veterans Memorial Lady Chargers at the Laredo United Tournament.
Roy Hess covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @HessRgehess