HARLINGEN — Harlingen South was in need of a bounce-back victory after losing its district opener to Brownsville Veterans on Saturday.
And thanks to a relentless offensive attack along with a very potent defense, the Lady Hawks rebounded quite nicely with an easy 25-10, 25-9, 25-11 win over Brownsville Lopez on Tuesday.
“You just don’t want to start the district season at 0-2,” said Lady Hawks head coach Jennifer Taliancich after the match. “After our loss on Saturday, we worked a lot on trying to clean up our mistakes and passing the ball better. We did a good job tonight.”
The Lady Hawks came out of the gates quickly and the Lady Lobos simply didn’t have an answer.
In Game 1, South rushed out to a 17-5 lead mostly thanks to Lopez miscues. But the Lady Hawks also got plenty of offense from their frontline attackers including Christina Montez and Lexi Kruse. Before the Lady Lobos knew what hit them, the Lady Hawks pushed their lead to 22-7 and finally won the game by 15 points.
In the second game, the Lady Hawks’ offense put on a clinic as Kruse, Allyson Benavides and Adrianna Espinosa pounded the ball into Lopez’s side of the net over and over again. By the time the Lady Lobos managed to string together consecutive points, they trailed 18-7.
And after Kruse nailed yet another kill shot to end Lopez’s point streak and make it 19-7, Montez took over at the net and came up with two big kills to help South win the game 25-9.
By the time the third game got underway, the Lady Lobos simply didn’t have any fight left in them as the Lady Hawks literally pounded them into submission.
Early in Game 3 with things tied at 2-2, Kruse blasted a shot over the net that hit a Lopez player so hard it sent her back about a foot before the ball sailed out of bounds to give South the point.
After that the Lady Hawks had their way the rest of the match, scoring 10 straight points to open up a commanding 17-4 lead that Lopez could never recover from.
The win couldn’t have come at a better time for the Lady Hawks who take on Los Fresnos on the road Saturday afternoon. The Lady Falcons were 24-8 coming into action on Tuesday and winners of their last four straight matches.
“We know what we’ll be up against on Saturday, but our whole district is tough so we’re ready,” Taliancich said.