KEVIN NARRO | Staff Writer
HARLINGEN —Harlingen High nearly pulled off a stunning comeback Tuesday night in their home opener against Edinburg North.
After trailing by two sets, Harlingen High found some momentum and forced a fourth set. In the fourth set, the Lady Cardinals raced out to a 13-8 lead and looked to be in control.
Meanwhile Edinburg North dug deep and rallied back to take a 21-20 lead and eventually sealed a 25-23 win to spoil the Lady Cards’ home opener in four sets 25-19, 25-18, 16-25 and 25-23.
“We changed our line up a little bit in game three and four,” said Harlingen coach Joslynn Torres. “We have started slow in a lot of games this season and I have told the girls that we as coaches can only do so much, it needs to come from them.”
The Lady Cougars fended off the late rally and were led by Natalie Rodriguez who finished with 21 kills and 18 digs, while teammate Evana Ramos finished with a team high 22 digs.
“We just started slow,” said senior Taegan Dickey. “We need to not give up and to continue to fight. We realized that this was our home opener and we did not want to lose, so it’s a matter of getting back to work this week and get ready for our tournament.”
In the first two sets, Edinburg North capitalized on Harlingen’s mistakes and took the first two sets. The Lady Cards are without senior libero Alina Prado who is out with a hand injury, but it’s slated to return to the lineup within the next week or two.
The Lady Cards will now regroup and shift their focus to this weekend’s Mission Tournament, while Edinburg North has another road test against Brownsville Veterans Memorial.
“A lot of the kids are young, they played on the junior varsity last year, so now it’s a matter of them getting used to the varsity speed,” Torres said. “We can and we will get better, we just can’t afford to start slow in games like we did tonight.”