By ROY HESS | THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD
St. Joseph Academy’s first full season of varsity volleyball competition came to a close on a positive note Tuesday with the Lady Bloodhounds winning at home against San Isidro in a non-district match.
SJA triumphed 25-22, 25-17.
The match was shortened and played with a best-of-three format instead of the usual best-of-five arrangement because San Isidro has its district cross country meet scheduled Wednesday morning and its volleyball players participate in that sport as well. The girls needed to get home before too late and get a good night’s sleep since they were going to get up early to run at their district meet.
Tuesday’s win allowed the Lady Bloodhounds to finish their first full varsity season with a 10-5 record. All their matches were non-district. They hope to compete in TAPPS in the future.
Throughout the match, both teams had trouble maintaining consistent play for any length of time, but the Lady Bloodhounds were the steadier of the two squads and it showed in their favor on the scoreboard.
“I think we were communicating more than San Isidro and just talking to each other (more) in general (and that was what helped us win),” said SJA’s Milandra Bossolo, a senior libero who finished with a team-high nine digs and a pair of aces.
“I think this season was really fun, but there’s always room for improvement,” she added. “I’m a little sad that (I’m graduating and) I won’t be here to see the improvement (next season). I’m going to miss the girls.”
SJA led by as many as eight points, 14-6, in the first game before the Lady Tigers battled back to tie the score at 17-17, 19-19, 21-21 and 22-22. San Isidro even led 20-19 on an ace.
The Lady Bloodhounds regained the lead 23-22 when the Lady Tigers hit the ball into the net. SJA then took a 24-22 advantage on another San Isidro hitting error. An ace by SJA’s Halima Dervisevic gave her team the 25-22 first-game win.
San Isidro never led or tied the score in the second set as the Lady Bloodhounds built leads of 5-0 and 14-5 before the Lady Tigers closed the gap to 16-15 on another ace, but came no closer.
The Lady Bloodhounds took the second match 25-17 when the Lady Tigers hit the ball too many times and failed to get it over the net on the final point.
“It feels good to end the season on a winning note,” SJA coach Dolores Olguin-Trevino said. “I just wish we had done a better job with our consistency. We gave up two big leads, and one of them was eight points (14-6).
“The group that I started the season with really was only six players, and they played pretty much all the time until I pulled up a couple more players (from the junior varsity),” Olguin-Trevino added. “I think the perseverance and the toughness of these girls is what has stood out to me. We played a number of four- and five-set matches with basically six players, so endurance was a big part of it, too.”
Against San Isidro, Ally Stachowiak led SJA with six kills and had one stuff-block. Also for the Lady Bloodhounds, Dervisevic had four kills, two aces and one block-stuff, Tori Gonzalez contributed three kills and Bekah Rodriguez added two kills and two aces.