KEVIN NARRO | Staff Writer
HARLINGEN—The Harlingen South Lady Hawks were glad to be back on their home court for the first time in nearly two weeks.
Over that time, the Lady Hawks toured the Rio Grande Valley and made a trip to Sinton for tournament play.
On Tuesday, however, South met a familiar adversary in Sharyland Pioneer. This past weekend at the Sharyland tournament, South fell to the Lady D’Backs. Tuesday was a different story.
Harlingen South, led by junior hitter Mikela Mireles, put on a show with a 30-kill performance as South took down Pioneer in four sets, 25-17, 25-15, 20-25, 25-19, avenging their weekend loss and improving to 13-10 on the year. Up next is a road test Saturday at Brownsville Pace.
“It feels great to be back on our home court,” Mireles said. “We needed this and this win. It was a tough weekend, (Pioneer is) a tough team. We lost to them over the weekend, but we learned some things and we corrected some things and it showed tonight.”
Mireles was up and down the court with her aggressive attacking, and helped South to two quick wins during the first two sets.
Although the district portion of the season is still a few weeks away, South looked to be in midseason form. In both sets, South built leads and held on to win.
“This is what we needed, we needed to come back home and get some confidence back,” South coach Anissa Lucio said. “Our leadership and our defense has improved from the start of the season till now. Those two things have really come around, and defensively the girls have done what they are asked and have kept their focus.”
Pioneer made life difficult for South and avoided a sweep during the third set.
In the fourth set, South regrouped and took a 14-7 lead midway through the match and did not look back from there. Along with Mireles’ strong performance, Allyah Guevara collected 26 digs and Mya Aguirre finished with 24 assists.
“Our defense and serve-receive is what sparks us,” Lucio said. “That is what got our offense going tonight. Heading into the fourth set, I told the girls we needed to finish, we had to show that we can finish games, and we did that tonight.”