ROY HESS | The Brownsville Herald
Rivera volleyball coach Elizabeth Avelar-Guerra thought she would reach her 500th career coaching victory sometime this weekend at the Sharyland Tournament in Mission, but Hurricane Harvey had other ideas.
The threat of Hurricane Harvey complicated those plans as Brownsville volleyball teams were told Thursday by the BISD athletic department they couldn’t travel to this week’s away tournaments.
Rivera, Porter, Pace and Hanna were scheduled to play in the Sharyland Tournament beginning Thursday, while Lopez was entered in the Hidalgo Tournament and Brownsville Veterans Memorial was to play in the Laredo United Tournament.
Also, a two-day, 11-team tournament starting Friday with St. Joseph Academy as the host school was canceled.
Avelar-Guerra was going into the Sharyland Tournament with 498 career victories. She and the Lady Raiders expected to witness the milestone 500th match victory sometime at the scheduled three-day tournament.
Several of the Brownsville volleyball teams received the news not to travel just as they were preparing to board their busses on Thursday morning.
“The girls were a little upset and sad,” Avelar-Guerra said. “They wanted to see us get to 500, plus it was the last tournament of the season for our seniors.
“But safety of the students is the most important thing,” she added. “When the girls heard that the 500th win might possibly come at home now, they felt better about things. You can never count your chickens (before they hatch), so we’ll just see what happens (as far as getting to 500).”
Without playing in the Sharyland Tournament, the Lady Raiders now will continue their non-district schedule with a match at Edinburg North on Tuesday and a home match against Edinburg High on Sept. 2. There’s also an away non-district match at Mercedes on Sept. 5.
When asked about reaching 500 wins, Avelar-Guerra said, “Yes, it’s a special milestone I’ve wanted to reach, and (at one point) I wasn’t sure I would ever get there. In some ways, I’d like to see it happen soon (before District 32-6A starts) because it might be putting more pressure on our girls. It’s been a goal of mine to achieve it.”
It appeared the only Metro-area team playing volleyball on Thursday was Los Fresnos at the Sharyland Tournament, which continued as planned Thursday, but without participants from Brownsville.
The Lady Falcons were already on their way to Mission when the news broke that the Brownsville teams wouldn’t be traveling to the tournament.
Los Fresnos dropped its first tournament match Thursday against Harlingen High 25-19,25-22, 16-14. The Lady Falcons bounced back to beat Edinburg Vela 25-21, 25-23.
“Our athletic director (Patrick Brown) told me that if it started getting bad, I could come home at any time,” Lady Falcons coach Becky Woods said.
Woods said Los Fresnos CISD superintendent Gonzalo Salazar was issuing a statement saying all athletic events scheduled Friday were to be canceled.
In addition to the Lady Bloodhounds, the volleyball tournament at SJA scheduled Friday and Saturday was to include Athlos Leadership Academy, Brownsville First Baptist, Brownsville IDEA Frontier, IDEA Donna, IDEA San Juan, Santa Maria, Santa Rosa, San Perlita, La Villa and Juan Diego Academy.
Dolores Olguin-Trevino, SJA coach, released a statement Thursday to the participating teams saying, “I regret to inform you that the Catholic Diocese has canceled school on Friday due to the impending storm. Unfortunately, that means the SJA Tournament will be canceled also.”
The mandate from BISD for no athletic activities by its schools this weekend also applied to scheduled football scrimmages and cross country meets.
Roy Hess covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @HessRgehess