BY TJ GARCIA | SPECIAL TO THE MONITOR
SAN JUAN — Five long, glorious sets of high school volleyball, and in the end nothing was settled.
That’s because Edinburg North rallied to beat PSJA High 19-25, 25-10, 23-25, 25-19, 15-8 on Tuesday night, and the victory sent the Cougars into a rematch play-in game at 6 p.m. Friday night at PSJA High.
PSJA won the coin flip right after the regular-season finale was finished. The winner of Friday’s match moves on to the playoffs.
The two squads are tied for fourth place in District 31-6A at 6-8. PSJA could have sealed a bi-district playoff berth with a win, but the team just couldn’t handle Edinburg North’s aggressive play in game five.
Cougars coach Adrian Cavazos said his team played up to its potential and not its record.
“I think the girls finally got tired of not being successful, and they realized that they still had a chance,” Cavazos said. “As bad as we’ve played all year long, they realized that they had a chance and took advantage of it.”
PSJA came out blazing and won the first set with mistake-free play. But with PSJA’s best hitters on the bench much of the second set, the Cougars woke up and took advantage.
The teams traded the next two sets and evened the match at two apiece.
After being behind in sets twice, Edinburg North wrestled control of the match in game five behind a coordinated offense and the powerful play of Amber Dreyer (18 kills) and Natalie Rodriguez (15 kills).
Dreyer said the team was aware of what was at stake. After the first set, the Cougars huddled and decided to dig deep.
“We just said, ‘We are going to have to play with our hearts and play together if we are going to win,’” Dreyer, an outside hitter, said. “This could have been our last game, and we wanted to leave everything out on the court.”
Setters Jessica Dreyer and Amanda Cavazos set the table for the Edinburg North offense.