By ROY HESS | The Brownsville Herald
PORT ISABEL — It was a short journey down Highway 100 for the Los Fresnos Lady Falcons to the eighth annual Volley at the Beach Tournament in Port Isabel.
Their trip back home on Saturday was even more enjoyable as they brought along the volleyball tournament’s first-place trophy.
Los Fresnos defeated District 32-6A rival Hanna 25-17, 25-12 in Saturday’s championship match of the three-day, 13-team tournament played at Port Isabel’s main and practice gyms.
“I think the chemistry that we have (at this point early in the season) is different (and on a higher level) than everybody else’s (and that helped us win this tournament),” said Sandra Salazar, a senior outside hitter for the Lady Falcons.
“Also, it helps that the younger players on our team are very coachable and they always listen to everything we have to tell them. We connect with them, and that’s good.
“It felt really good to win this tournament,” Salazar added. “We just kept communicating as a team, even when we were up by 10 points or so (in the second game). We played really well. There are still some things we can fix, but overall, I think we did a good job.”
For the Lady Falcons in the title match, Emma Stambaugh, Victoria Hernandez and Kaitlyn Mata recorded seven, six and five kills, respectively. Also for Los Fresnos, Sarah Villarreal had 24 assists and six digs, Isis Delgado had 13 digs and
Jovanna Adame had six digs. Hernandez also had three blocks.
Leading hitters for the Lady Golden Eagles were Odalys Gonzales and Ariana Arcenaux.
It didn’t take long for the Lady Falcons to go out in front during each game and maintain the lead the rest of the way, although Hanna pulled to within one point four times in the opening set (11-10, 12-11, 17-16 and 18-17), but could never overtake the lead after being up 1-0.
Los Fresnos also had defeated Hanna at last weekend’s Poundfest Tournament in McAllen in an early round match.
“We just need to go on from here,” said Los Fresnos coach Becky Woods, whose team improved to 13-4 on the young season. “We need to keep racking up the wins. If we can go into next weekend’s Sharyland Tournament with the same momentum we had this weekend, I believe we’ll do a good job.
“I told our girls we had to make Hanna earn its points (in the championship match) because Hanna has some good hitters,” Woods added. “We just need to be everywhere all the time (to win against strong opponents). We can’t give anyone a break, especially not the ones in our district.”
Los Fresnos reached the title match with wins earlier Saturday against La Feria (25-1, 25-14) and PSJA Southwest (25-16, 25-13). Hanna, the defending tournament champion, advanced to Saturday’s final with victories against Port Isabel (25-20, 25-14) and Corpus Christi Carroll (18-25, 25-15, 15-12).
Carroll defeated PSJA Southwest 25-20, 21-25, 15-5 in the third-place match.
La Feria won the consolation championship with a 25-12, 25-21 victory over Weslaco East.