TJ Garcia | SPECIAL TO THE MONITOR
EDINBURG — Saturday’s match wasn’t the prototypical showdown between two of the district’s best teams.
Unforced errors and mental mistakes were prevalent as PSJA Memorial visited Edinburg Vela for a District 31-6A volleyball game.
But for all its imperfections, the match showed the Wolverines’ grit and resiliency, as they went down a set and then won three straight to beat the SaberCats 21-25, 25-23, 25-23, 26-24. With the win, PSJA Memorial took control of District 31-6A by improving to 10-1 in district and 22-14 overall.
Although it didn’t assure the Lady Wolverines of any postseason standing yet, the win was something that the team clearly savored.
“Our mindset coming to this gym was we have been waiting three years to get this,” said Kristi Gomez, a senior middle hitter who sparked PSJA Memorial with 24 kills. “We just came to a mindset that we can’t give up. We have been waiting for this game for three years, and we were not going let it slip out of our hands. We made this victory happen.”
Gomez was referring to PSJA Memorial’s long history of not having success in volleyball before recent years under coach Angie Gonzales. And maybe nerves got the best of the Wolverines in the first set, as they had a series of unforced errors and lost to Vela’s one-player wrecking crew by the name of Bianca Cortez.
The sets were nip and tuck throughout as the biggest lead for either team was six points. PSJA somewhat controlled the second set, leading nearly the entire way to even things a one set each. The Wolverines did almost the same to win game three and went up 2-1.
Vela made PSJA Memorial work hard in game four, but eventually the Wolverines simply made fewer mistakes than the SaberCats. A few timely kills from Gomez and Victoria Hernandez helped Memorial close out Vela.
“Vela is an extremely strong team and their defense is amazing,” Gonzales said. “We were equally matched, and it came down to a couple of crucial calls and things like that, but the girls woke up after that first set.”
Gonzales said she was proud of how the Wolverines’ defense kept them in the game. She mentioned Victoria Mae Maldonado, Brittney Salcido and Kristy Alanis as standouts for the defense. Gonzales added that with the win, the team “hasn’t won anything yet” and has a lot work to do to secure a position in the postseason.
Edinburg Vela (9-2, 21-14), meanwhile, even with the loss, is still very much in the thick of the district race with three games left. Cortez, the team’s overall leader in kills, had 16 more on Saturday.