By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
The St. Joseph Academy volleyball team returns a good amount of talent and experience from last season’s TAPPS playoff qualifier.
Those qualities were on display during Saturday’s tri-match scrimmage at Pace as a new season of volleyball unfolds. Practice just began Thursday.
The Lady Bloodhounds captured scrimmage victories against Porter and Pace.
During each of the three matches, two of the teams initially played a 20-minute “warmup” game with no score kept before playing a game when the score was recorded.
During the scored games, SJA triumphed against Porter 25-17 and against Pace 25-18. Also, the day’s opener saw Porter defeat Pace 25-17.
SJA has seven players with starting experience returning. The team’s libero was absent Saturday, so only six were on hand.
The Lady Bloodhounds finished 21-12 overall in 2018, including a 5-3 showing to place second in district behind Victoria St. Joseph. This is just the Lady Bloodhounds’ fifth season as a volleyball program.
“I like the fact that our girls are jelling together,” said SJA coach Dolores Olguin-Trevino, whose team played in a TAPPS district for the first time last season and made its first playoff appearance as a district runner-up. “Our girls are coming together as a team.
“A lot of them have been playing together all summer long, so I kind of expected a showing like this,” the coach added. “(Still,) a lot of them were a little nervous at the beginning today because now it’s actually volleyball season.
“They still lack some communication, and some other things like that. We had better passing against Porter than Pace, and that led to more kills against Porter. Our passing was definitely better in our first match (against Porter).”
Returning team captain/middle blocker Ally Stachowiak, a senior, led the Lady Bloodhounds with a double-digit total of kills for the day. The other team captain is Tori Gonzalez, a senior right-side hitter.
Against Porter, SJA broke out of ties at 1 and 2 to lead the rest of the way. Even though the Cowgirls pulled within two points, 19-17, when the Lady Bloodhounds hit into the net, SJA surged ahead again and won by its biggest margin of eight points, 25-17, when Porter hit into the net.
Against Pace, SJA never fell behind and led by scores of 3-0, 7-2 and 9-3 before the Lady Vikings pulled into a tie at 12 when the Lady Bloodhounds gave up a point on a hitting miscue. From there, SJA went ahead for good to win by seven points, 25-18, when Pace hit into the net.
Pace had some strong moments, particularly during the portion of the match against SJA that was not scored.
“I’m happy with the progress the girls have made,” said Lady Vikings coach Pamela McCumber, who has four players back with varsity experience. “We had several good plays and showed some good movement. It’s back to work on Monday.”
Porter coach Tiffany Capistran was pleased with her team’s play Saturday and added more improvement is still required.
“I liked what I saw, even though we still have a lot of work ahead, but I’m excited to start the season with the girls so we can progress,” said Capistran, who returns six players with starting experience. “We have a lot of girls that have been coming back and just (now) getting started. They’ve improved, so we’re good to go.”
Porter next scrimmages at 10 a.m. Tuesday at La Feria. SJA next scrimmages at 9 a.m. Monday at Port Isabel. Other teams involved in the quad-scrimmage with SJA will be Port Isabel, Hanna and Harlingen High.
Pace is open until beginning the regular season Thursday at the Poundfest Tournament in McAllen.