BY NATE KOTISSO | THE MONITOR
McALLEN — McAllen Rowe girls athletic coordinator Raul Vega had an encouraging few words with volleyball coach Magda Canales in the hallway outside of the gymnasium following Rowe’s 25-20, 25-20, 25-20 loss to San Antonio Reagan on Friday.
“He told me that this was one of the best teams I’ve ever coached,” Canales said. “He thought I got the best out of every single girl.”
The Warriors had their work cut out for them, not only going up against San Antonio Reagan, a Texas juggernaut, but a Reagan team regarded as one of the best high school teams in the country.
Reagan (44-1) entered their UIL Class 6A Regional Semifinal match Friday against Rowe ranked first nationally in Maxpreps.com’s latest XCellent Top 25 Writers’ Poll.
“We knew what kind of caliber of team we were going up against,” Canales said. “We knew were going to struggle with their blocking, but our defense was going to be our strength. We said at the beginning that we were going to stick together, regardless of happened. I am very proud of the girls.”
Senior setter Adrianna Martinez had 10 digs, 2 aces and a kill.
“We lacked a couple of simple things, like serves and hitting errors, but we were trying to get it together at the end,” Martinez said. “The little things killed us — not the big things.”
Junior outside hitter Jackelyn Alanis led Rowe (35-8) with 19 kills to go along with 24 digs, an ace and a block.
At the beginning of the year, Alanis and the rest of the underclassmen dedicated the season to Rowe’s seven seniors.
“I thank my seniors, because they’re most of our team and now they’re all leaving,” Alanis said. “I couldn’t do anything without all of them. It does suck for it to end like this, because we wanted to go further.”
“I’m so glad the upperclassmen stepped it up this season,” Martinez said. “We’re thankful they gave us the new experience of going further than we expected to go.”