By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
The Lopez Lady Lobos refuse to let their volleyball season end.
The Lady Lobos rallied to prevail 19-25, 25-17, 25-20, 23-25, 16-14 in a marathon match Tuesday against the Pace Lady Vikings.
The Lopez win at the Pace gym left the two teams tied at 6-8 for fourth place in District 32-5A on the final night of conference play.
The Lady Lobos and Lady Vikings now are scheduled to have a “play-in” match at noon Saturday at Pace to determine which of them will advance to the postseason as the fourth-place squad from 32-5A. Also headed to the playoffs from 32-5A are Brownsville Veterans Memorial, Edcouch-Elsa and Donna High.
Lopez coach Jacquelynn Touchet was pretty thrilled about her team’s comeback performance against the Lady Vikings. Neither team ever took much of a commanding lead in any of the games.
“This is so amazing,” Touchet said. “I’m beyond proud of these girls that they fought from the beginning of Game 1 and even into Game 5. We were down and we came back. I’m beyond proud of these girls. It was all them.”
The two teams played on Oct. 1 at Lopez during the opening round of district and Pace won 27-25, 26-24, 25-19.
Tuesday’s rematch was every bit as close.
The third game was particularly a back-and-forth affair with 16 ties, the last deadlock coming at 19-19 before Lopez surged ahead to score six of the next seven points to take the set 25-20 and go ahead in the match 2-1. A well-placed tip by the Lady Lobos provided the final point in the third game for the 25-20 victory.
Pace trailed by five points, 21-16, in the fourth game before rallying to win it 25-23 and send the match to a deciding fifth set.
The Lady Vikings were up 4-1 in the fifth game before Lopez again battled back. There were nine ties in the fifth game, the last of which came at 14-14 when the Lady Vikings hit the ball out of bounds. Pace had been up 14-12, but the Lady Lobos wouldn’t fold. Unforced hitting errors by Pace on the last three points enabled Lopez to take the fifth set 16-14 and capture the match.
Saturday’s Lopez-Pace winner will advance to next week’s bi-district playoffs to face the District 31-5A champion.