By LARRY GAGE
Special to the PRESS
The Port Isabel High Lady Tarpons volleyball team will be at home this weekend for a match against the Lyford Lady Bulldogs. The Freshmen and JV matches will both get started at 10 a.m. and will be followed at 11 a.m. by the Varsity match.
After rallying for a third place finish in their own Volley at the Beach Tournament two weeks ago, the Lady Tarpons have split their last two matches. Last Saturday, in Tarpon Gym, they handled the Harlingen JV Dark team in straight sets, 25-19, 25-18, 25-20. And this Tuesday they lost in straight sets at Monte Alto, 17-25, 21-25, 23-25. Two matches remain to be played before the district schedule starts on Sept. 12.
“We’re talking a lot more and it really showed on the court,” senior libero Alex Martinez said after the Harlingen match. “Everybody has such energy and we communicate very well on and off the court.”
“Our kids really stayed focused and came out here and did what they needed to do,” Port Isabel head coach Julie Breedlove said Saturday. “Harlingen High’s got good teams and they always send us a good JV Dark team to play with. It gave us an opportunity to get all the girls out there and gave us an option to play with a few things.”
As for the Monte Alto match, it was a case of a very good team having an off night against a team that was ready to take advantage. “We were a little bit off last night,” Breedlove said Wednesday. “It wasn’t our best showing, but Monte Alto is scrappy and they were ready to play.”
It was a combination of things that caused the match to go against Port Isabel, according to Breedlove. “We had a lot of service errors, ball handling errors and hitting errors, and we had a couple of setting errors.”
“All those things combined just don’t make for a good match. It’s a lot of the little things and we really try to stress that there are no little things. We had some bright spots and we built some momentum, but we couldn’t keep it going.”
Next Tuesday the Lady Tarpons will play their final non-district match at Brownsville Porter. The first two district matches will be on the road; at Zapata on Saturday, Sept. 12, and at Rio Hondo on Tuesday, the 15th. The Ladies’ first home district match will be against Raymondville on Saturday, Sept. 19.
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