By STEFAN MODRICH | Staff Writer
PORT ISABEL — One of the consequences of age and experience in coaching is a generational gap between the student-athletes they supervise.
In the case of Los Fresnos volleyball coach Becky Woods and her team, that manifests itself in music. Woods has seen the tastes of her student-athletes change with the times, but her love for the music of the 1970s and 1980s has remained constant.
While the Lady Falcons do have plenty of modern music in their playlists, before games they began to pay homage to their coach’s preferences with ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’, which gained a new audience when it was featured in the 2008 film “Mamma Mia!”
“We had a scrimmage here, and we just started playing it,” junior outside hitter Tate Halford said. “That was the first song we all danced to. Once we played the song, we played good. We all sing to it.”
In making the hit song their pregame anthem, the Los Fresnos girls have found another way to build a bond with each other and with their coach, invigorating the roster with their Zumba dancing and youthful energy. They also took the ABBA song title seriously during their warmups prior to their match against Corpus Christi Carroll, dancing to Rednex’s “Cotton Eye Joe.”
“I feel like when you dance, it breaks all the ice,” Halford said. “Everybody gets to know everybody, and that just helps.”
The fun-loving Lady Falcons went 2-1 on Friday, dropping the first match to Carroll (24-26, 18-25) before taking down St. Joseph (25-16, 25-13) and La Feria.
Woods cautioned her team against complacency and said she thought Los Fresnos looked tired and let its guard down against Carroll.
“I know we’re a good team and I know what they’re capable of doing,” Woods said. “It’s up to them to put their skills to use, and to get down and want to win the game.”
The Lady Falcons rebounded in their next two matches. Los Fresnos started off with an 8-1 run during their final pool play match against La Feria and went on to take the first game 25-16.
In the second game, senior Jasmin Garcia helped the Lady Falcons seize control with an emphatic spike that led to a kill and a 6-1 Los Fresnos advantage. The lead ballooned to 11-2 before La Feria narrowed the margin to 14-9. Halford helped stem the tide and ended the Lionettes’ rally with kills of her own.
Los Fresnos worked to set up Garcia with another chance for a match point. Looking to return a La Feria volley, she wound up and faked out the La Feria front line before tipping the ball lightly over the net for the match-clinching kill, 25-12. In her fourth season with Los Fresnos, Garcia said rising to the occasion in big moments comes naturally to her.
“I just hit,” Garcia. “Every time I’m aggressive, I take it out on the ball.”