BY NATE KOTISSO | THE MONITOR
MISSION — McAllen Memorial and La Joya Palmview had been accustomed to the early morning starts and multi-match tournaments that a weekend can bring to a typical non-district schedule. But that all ended Saturday.
The Mustangs and Lobos met in their first district match of the season at high noon, with McAllen Memorial emerging victorious 25-13, 25-8, 25-9 on La Joya Palmview’s home floor.
“When we played in the morning, we had to wake up super early,” McAllen Memorial junior middle blocker Valeria Trevino said. “Some of us can be kind of sleepy, so it can take a while to get up and play our game. When we play in the afternoons, we’re all hyped and ready to go.”
The Mustangs (19-5, 1-0) ran through the first game with little resistance from the Lobos (4-3, 0-1). But La Joya Palmview took advantage of some unforced errors by McAllen Memorial to start the second game, jumping out to a 3-1 lead. Memorial tied the set at six before running away with the game.
“I told them in that second game, ‘Hey, you can go against anybody, but you can’t be afraid,’” La Joya Palmview coach Margo Iglesias-Cantu said. “And they got more loose in the second game. Our communication improved, as well.”
Iglesias-Cantu knew her team would have its hands full with the Mustangs but saw building blocks rounding into form.
“We had a lot of positives out there,” Iglesias-Cantu said. “We set certain goals today. How many blocks we were going to do, how many kills, how many digs and we pretty much met what we wanted to do. We wanted to be closer with Memorial, of course, but we’re still gunning for a playoff spot.”
Memorial had contributions from senior Meredith Garcia, who had 7 kills and 6 digs. Sophomore Sydney Marburger tallied 10 assists and 4 aces. Senior Lexi Kruse chipped in with 4 kills, 7 assists and a block. Valeria Trevino led her team in kills (8) to go along with 6 digs and 2 aces.
“We played really good defense and offense,” Trevino said. “Passing is our warmup. Good passing is the only way we’re going to win games. We also tried to not let any ball hit the floor or miss any serves.”
“I saw some of the things we’ve been working on,” McAllen Memorial coach Lorena Lopez said. “Communication and moving our feet to the ball. Those are little things that matter in big games, and we’ve improved on that.”