By ROY HESS | THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD
The Brownsville Veterans Memorial Lady Chargers are enjoying the view from atop the District 32-5A volleyball standings.
In a city rivalry matchup Tuesday at Lopez, the defending district champion Lady Chargers improved to 4-0 in 32-5A action with a 25-18, 25-20, 25-12 triumph over the Lady Lobos (2-2).
“I think it’s a great feeling (to be leading 32-5A with an unbeaten record), especially since we were district champs with no losses last year,” said Rebecca Cardenas, a senior middle blocker for the Lady Chargers. “I hope we can keep going through our district schedule (undefeated and) winning each match 3-0.
“We started a little rough tonight,” she added. “We thought we would do better than we did and (play more) how we’re supposed to. Lopez is a city rival and we have a few of them in our district. We hope to do even better against our next city rival.”
The Lady Chargers next play host to Porter at 4 p.m. Saturday as conference play continues. Lopez next plays at 1 p.m. Saturday at Mercedes.
The Lady Lobos displayed some strong play at times, particularly during the first two games. They led 6-3 in the first set and tied the score seven times, the last of which was 14-14, before the Lady Chargers prevailed 25-18 in the opening game.
In the second set, Lopez led by five points twice, 8-3 and 9-4. The score was tied 14-14 and 15-15, before two of three points came on aces by Frida Rangel to give the Lady Chargers some breathing room at 18-15 en route to taking the second game 25-20.
Brownsville Veterans coach Lisa Mares had mixed feelings about the win, saying the Lopez girls appeared to come out with more energy than her squad.
“It seems like every time we play on the road we have a very slow start,” Mares said. “Tonight was not the first time (this season). It’s like I wasn’t seeing our (real) team out there on the court. I told them to show off and do what they’ve worked so hard for (in practice).
“We picked things up and had more energy toward the end of the match,” she added. “I told the girls, ‘We can’t wait that long to get going. We’re going to have other matches on the road and we have to be ready to play better.’
“I’m glad that we pulled through and got the win, but it shouldn’t be like that.”
Top performers on the stat sheet for the Lady Chargers were Cassie Valdez (14 kills, 16 assists, 10 digs), Cynthia Garcia (11 kills, nine digs), Pamela Sanchez (10 digs, four aces) and Kasandra Jimenez (26 digs, two aces).
“Our defense really helped us tonight,” said Valdez, a senior outside hitter/all-around player. “We kept each other motivated even when we had a bad streak (of making some errors). We kept working hard and came back. We have teamwork and confidence (on this team).”
Active at the net for the Lady Lobos were Gina Fraga, Jennifer Cisneros and Carla Lopez.