By ROY HESS | Staff Writer
St. Joseph Academy captured a TAPPS district volleyball victory Saturday that gives the Lady Bloodhounds plenty of promise for the rest of the season.
The Lady Bloodhounds defeated Corpus Christi Incarnate Word Academy 25-11, 25-14, 25-13 at the SJA gym.
“I think if we can win the next two or three (district) matches, we’ll be OK (and make the TAPPS playoffs),” SJA coach Dolores Olguin-Trevino said. “Today, what I think stood out the most was our girls kept their intensity, because we have a tendency to slack off at times. We kind of did that during the third set, but during the first two sets I think we kept that intensity up for the most part.
“That was something I liked to see because Incarnate Word was missing some players,” the SJA coach added. “When we played them the first time (in district) we went to five sets, and we won. Today, I told the girls, ‘Regardless of who is on the court (for them), you have to still play your game and play with intensity.’
“That was the whole (message) I had for them today. The one word I stressed to them was intensity. I think we did a fairly good job of doing it, except for maybe a little bit in the third set when we got a little too comfortable, and they scored a few points on our unforced errors.”
SJA improved to 3-2 in its TAPPS district and to 14-8 on the season.
It was the kind of match that became a confidence-booster at home for the Lady Bloodhounds.
SJA jumped out to leads of 10-1, 12-3 and 23-9 during the opening game before winning 25-11 on a serving ace by Ally Stachowiak.
The Lady Bloodhounds never trailed during the second game and held leads of 6-2, 10-4, 16-9 and 22-14 before Stachowiak again won the set with an ace. This time the score was 25-14.
There were two early ties at 1 and 2 during the third game, and Incarnate Word even led 2-1. But SJA then pulled away for advantages of 10-5, 14-6, 19-9 and 22-12. An Incarnate Word player couldn’t control a hit by SJA’s Mildred Verlage on the final point of the third game and the ball carried out of bounds, giving the Lady Bloodhounds the game 25-13 and the match in a sweep.
Stachowiak finished with 16 kills, four aces and three block-stuffs plus eight digs. Verlage had six kills and five digs. Elise Esparza added five aces and 27 assists. Andrea Jasso contributed five kills, one block-stuff and eight digs. Also for SJA, Natalia Montemayor had seven digs.
The Lady Bloodhounds next play at Laredo St. Augustine on Tuesday.