By ROY HESS | THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD
They never seem to take an easy path to get there, yet the Lopez Lady Lobos are returning to the state playoffs in volleyball for the second straight season.
To clinch this year’s playoff berth, the Lady Lobos prevailed over Mercedes 25-23, 25-19, 23-25, 25-18 on Saturday at the Lopez gym in a District 32-5A “play-in” match to determine the district’s fourth-place qualifier for the postseason.
Lopez’s reward for winning Saturday is a Class 5A bi-district matchup against District 31-5A champion Mission Veterans, the Valley’s top-ranked team. The Lady Lobos and Lady Patriots will play Monday or Tuesday in Mission.
There were smiles all around for the Lady Lobos on Saturday when the final point had been recorded and the Lopez players realized they were moving on to the postseason.
“It feels great to make it to the playoffs because our team has put in so much hard work every single day throughout the whole season, and it took a lot of hard work to get this far,” said Lopez’s Jennifer Cisneros, a junior outside hitter who was one of her team’s standouts at the net against the Lady Tigers. “It feels great to see a good outcome come out of it.
“We were playing for each other,” Cisneros added. “For example, we didn’t want this to be the last match for our seniors. We just found a way to fight back and win the fourth set (after dropping the third game 25-23) because we didn’t want our season to end.”
For the most part, the Lady Lobos displayed more consistency than their opponents and kept the ball alive in tough situations by making some diving digs and saves.
“We came into the match very pumped up and wanting to play as consistently as we could,” said Lopez’s Amanda Parra, a junior outside hitter who finished as a leader for her team with a double-digit total in kills. “We tried to play our best and we executed very well.
“Last year we went into the playoffs (by winning a ‘play-in’ match with Pace) and this year it was the same thing (as we had another ‘play-in’ match),” Parra added. “We had to fight and play hard for our (postseason) spot, and we did it. Now we’re going to the playoffs again.”
After taking the first two games 25-23 and 25-19, things became considerably more difficult for the Lady Lobos in the third game. The Lady Tigers surged to leads of 13-6 and 17-7 before Lopez battled back to tie the third game at 22-22 and 23-23.
From there, Mercedes went up 24-23 when a Lopez block went out of bounds and then won the third set 25-23 on a kill by Roslynn Rodriguez.
It remained close much of the way in the fourth game and the score was deadlocked 14-14 before the Lady Lobos broke away to capture the match. A serving ace by Parra gave Lopez the lead for good, 15-14.
Parra had multiple kills in the final set to make sure the Lady Lobos would win. Her kills gave Lopez advantages of 18-14, 21-14 and 24-16. But a pair of unforced hitting errors by Lopez brought Mercedes to within 24-18. The Lady Tigers then had a serve carry too far and sail out of bounds on the final point of the fourth game to lift the Lady Lobos to the match victory.
“It was all the girls, it was all them,” said Lopez coach Jacquelynn Touchet, who now has guided her team to the playoffs three times during her six-year tenure as the Lady Lobos’ head coach. “These girls pulled through when they needed to, and I’m so proud of them.”
Lopez, Pace and Mercedes finished in a three-way tie for fourth place in 32-5A with 6-8 records last Tuesday, creating the scenario of having two “play-in” matches to figure out which of the three teams would go to the postseason as the district’s No. 4 playoff seed.
Mercedes defeated Pace 15-25, 25-18, 22-25, 26-24, 19-17 on Thursday in the first 32-5A “play-in” match to gain its spot opposite Lopez on Saturday.