KEVIN NARRO | Staff Writer
LA FERIA— In what was an early season battle for first place, Hidalgo and La Feria entered play with 2-0 District 32-4A marks. Despite being on the Lionettes’ home court, Hidalgo outhit La Feria and was consistent throughout the night.
Hidalgo’s Vanessa Espinoza led the offensive attack with a team-high 17 kills as the Lady Pirates swept the Lionettes 25-20, 25-10, 25-10. Hidalgo is in a first-place tie with Zapata, which is also 3-0. Hidalgo will meet Port Isabel on Saturday.
“I think, right now, we are coming together as a team,” Hidalgo coach KeyDee Benavidez said. “We played excellent tonight, we had really good chemistry and the kids talked and communicated well. Our setter moved the ball around great and our hitters adjusted to the sets, and we hit well and we had them on the run.”
La Feria began the first match on fire, jumping out to a 8-2 lead and stretching it into a 11-4 lead.
Benavidez simply wanted her team to have fun, and that is what it did. Hidalgo storm back and took a 13-12 lead, which it did not gave up. La Feria’s 12-11 edge was its final lead of the night.
“We needed to have fun. We were OK, and we knew we were going to be OK,” Benavidez said. “We just needed to stay focused on what we were doing by just playing our games and not their game.”
Jackie Garcia finished with seven kills, Soleil Garza led the team with 27 assists and Carolina Carbajal finished with 14 digs.
La Feria, meanwhile, is still in an OK spot with a 2-1 record, but it does have a date with Zapata on Saturday.
Tuesday night did not go the way Lionettes coach Rebea Fraga envisioned, and it just came down to execution and errors. The loss also serves as a wakeup call after they dropping their first district match of the season.
“We just picked a bad time to be very inconsistent,” Fraga said. “They were defiantly way more consistent than us. Last year we lost at Hidalgo in five sets, and after that we didn’t lose a match (during the regular season). I reminded the girls of that, and while Hidalgo played steady and consistent, we didn’t help ourselves, that is for sure. But there are things we can correct.”
La Feria’s Sierra Salinas notched 24 digs and three kills, Sabrina Castaneda finished with 20 digs, and Reanne Fraga finished with three aces, two kills, one block, six assists and nine digs. Sophia Cabrera added three aces, two kills and seven digs.