By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
Pace seems to bring out the best in Porter on the volleyball court.
At 2-7 in District 32-5A, the Cowgirls appear to be a longshot for the playoffs. But when they play the Lady Vikings, especially this season, the Porter girls come to life and make their matches against Pace quite a lively rivalry.
It was back and forth between the two teams throughout Saturday’s 32-5A match as the Lady Vikings (5-4 district) somehow found a way to prevail over the Cowgirls 25-23, 22-25, 25-22, 14-25, 15-12 at the Pace gym.
“Like I said before, anytime you get Pace and Porter together (on the volleyball court), it’s always going to be a dogfight,” Lady Vikings coach Gavin Rudder said. “Just how we pulled off a win in this match, I’m not real sure yet. It was back and forth, and we just happened to make that last point.
“After the match I told (Porter coach) Ariel (Arredondo), ‘Be proud of your team because your girls played great today,’” Rudder added. “‘They’ve got a lot of heart and they give a lot of effort. They showed it today with some of the balls they picked up.’”
Pace won for the fourth time in five district matches and now is tied for third place in 32-5A with Donna High, both at 5-4. Brownsville Veterans Memorial leads the district at 9-0 and Edcouch-Elsa is second at 7-2.
When the Cowgirls and Lady Vikings met in the first round of district on Sept. 13 at Porter, the Cowgirls won 25-13, 16-25, 25-19, 25-19.
“Pace came out to play well today,” Arredondo said. “I know we took the match in the first half of district. Knowing Coach Rudder and his girls, they weren’t going to let that happen again when we played here in their gym.
“Unfortunately for us, the team that made the least errors is the team that won,” she added. “Pace is an amazing team, and I really hope they’re able to push through and make it to the playoffs. We were able to pick up a lot of balls today that seemed kind of impossible to get to. We stayed in the match and took it to that fifth game after being down two games to one. Still, I’m not going to take anything from Pace. Their girls did an awesome job today.”
The fifth game was a prime example of how the whole match went. In it Porter led 3-0 before Pace came back to go up by four points twice at 10-6 and 11-7. Then there were ties in the score at 11 and 12. From there, the Lady Vikings surged ahead to win the final game 15-12 as Stephanie Saenz registered kills on two of the last three points in the match.
Leading the way for Pace were Angie Cardenas and Summer Bohn with 15 and 13 kills, respectively. Bohn also had 16 digs while Cardenas had six digs and two solo blocks.
Also for Pace, Kalynn Quezada had 27 digs and 16 assists while Amanda Gomez had 21 assists and 13 digs. Libero Ebony Casanova contributed 42 digs.
For Porter, Andrea Villanueva had 14 kills and teammate Melanie Gasca had 13 kills and five blocks. Also for Porter, April Reyes had 45 digs.