By ROY HESS | Staff Writer
The Brownsville Veterans Memorial gym is not an easy place to play.
Just ask the Edcouch-Elsa Lady Yellowjackets.
With an emotional, vocal home crowd cheering them on, the Brownsville Veterans Memorial Lady Chargers swept past the Lady Yellowjackets 25-22, 25-17, 25-12 on Tuesday to gain a District 32-5A co-championship in volleyball with E-E.
The Lady Yellowjackets, state-ranked much of the season in Class 5A by the Texas Girls Coaching Association, slipped to 34-8 overall and 13-1 in district.
The Lady Chargers, also state-ranked a few times earlier this season, are now 30-9 overall and 13-1 in 32-5A.
Brownsville Veterans won the 32-5A title in 2017. E-E won it last season. Now they’re co-champions.
“It was a good match between two good teams,” said Lady Chargers senior outside hitter Dominique Mena, who led her team with 10 kills and added 15 digs. “The defense was good for both teams, and the offense was as well. Both teams did a great job but I think we wanted it more, and we showed it on the court and we took the win.”
When the two teams met during the first round of district Oct. 5 in Elsa, E-E won 25-18, 22-25, 19-25, 25-21, 15-12.
While the Lady Chargers and Lady Yellowjackets remain co-champions, there is a playoff seeding match scheduled at 3 p.m. Saturday in Elsa to break the first-place tie for the postseason.
“At the beginning of the season when I saw the schedule, I knew it was going to come down to this,” Brownsville Veterans coach Elizabeth Mares said. “When I saw that we were at home (against E-E) for the last district match, I thought, ‘Perfect.’
“(Monday) we had an awesome practice,” Mares added. “I told the girls, ‘We got this.’ The girls were just on fire (Monday), and all day (Tuesday) I felt like it would carry over to this match.”
The Lady Yellowjackets led most of the way during the opening set. There were five ties during the first game, with the last of them at 21. From there, the Lady Chargers went up for good in the game 22-21 on a hit that carried too long by E-E.
A serving ace by Mena made it 23-21, and a hit into the net by E-E increased the Lady Chargers’ lead to 24-21. E-E added a point on a hitting miscue by the Lady Chargers for a 24-22 score before a cross-court kill by Mena gave her team the 25-22 opening-game win, which seemed to deflate the Lady Yellowjackets and energize the home team.
After ties at 1 and 2 during the second set, the Lady Chargers went ahead for good in the game at 3-2 and boasted leads of 9-3, 14-7, 19-9, 22-10 and 24-15 before taking the second set 25-17.
The third game followed a similar pattern after the last tie at 8. The Lady Chargers went up for good 9-8 on a net violation by E-E and soon won the third set and match with a 25-12 score.
Besides Mena’s stats for Brownsville Veterans, other contributors for the Lady Chargers were Monica Garcia (five kills, 11 digs), Sarah Gomez (16 digs) and Daniela Espinosa (19 assists, seven digs).