By ADAM KUJAWSKI, Staff Writer
One year’s worth of hard work paid off for the Los Fresnos Lady Falcons, and now it’s time the key components are rewarded for their effort.
Following a co-district championship, the Lady Falcons marched through the playoffs, wound up in San Antonioto compete in the Sweet 16 and completed one of the most successful seasons in school history.
For her accomplishments, 30-year coach Becky Woods has been named The Brownsville Herald’s All-Metro Coach of the Year. And though winning the award is an honor, she insisted on deferring the credit to her team.
“I give all the credit to the kids,” Woods said. “I’ve had great kids come through for 30 years, and there hasn’t been one bad year.
“This group jelled together. There was a chemistryabout these guys that you couldn’t pull them apart.
“They like the sport, they like the competition, and they love working with each other. That’s what makes them so good.”
Woods has been watching this group of girls work its way through the pipeline for a while. And after several years together, she knew this team had a chance to do something special before it even stepped on the court.
“(I knew) about a year ago,” she said. “I knew what we had coming back. We had the height, we had the attitude, and we had great character.”
Though Woods had the utmost confidence in her team, there was one element of uncertainty. Her libero, senior Alex Moya, had torn her anterior cruciate ligament during the previous soccer season and required months of rehabilitation.
“After I tore my ACL, it was so hard to do so many things,” Moya said. “I realize I took a lot for granted,and coming back from that was a lot of work. After school, during school, in the morning, every day I had to work at it so I was able to play on this floor and be a starter.
“I worked so hard in the offseason last year because I wanted to prove people wrong. I wanted to help my team out, and I wanted them not to worry if I was going to be good this year.”
Moya did more than recover, she anchored her team’s back row all season and wound up earning the All-Metro defensive player of the year award.
Early-season setbacks forced her to sit out during a few of her team’s non-district games, but she worked her way back and averaged a team-high 3.6 digs per set for the year, more than double her next closest teammate.
“Alex played hard. She did everything imaginable to rehabilitate that knee,” Woods said. “She was in the gym in the morning,she was in the gym during the athletic period, after school doing tons and tons of exercises. She really wanted to play libero this year and do the best job she could do.”
This is Moya’s first award of her volleyball career, and she joins teammates Joseline Caraveo, Sam Ibarra and Peyton Sales, who earned All-Metro first-team honors this year.
“I give a lot of credit to my team, because I wouldn’t have gotten (this award) if it wasn’t for them,” she said.
“It’s great seeing our team go through (this season). It’s not a surprise. I think we worked hard enough to deserve everything we got. We’ve accomplished so much as a team for our small community.”
Adam Kujawski covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6663 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @adamkujo1.