By CONSTANCIO MARTINEZ, JR.
Special to the PRESS
On Saturday, Sept. 14, the Port Isabel Lady Tarpons hosted the Brownsville Hanna Lady Eagles in a non-district volleyball game.
In the first match, Port Isabel went up 1-0 after Hanna’s hit ball sailed out of bounds. After a PI serving foul, the teams then went back and forth trading points. PI then started having trouble returning the ball as Hanna took a 5-2 lead.
After a serving foul by Hanna, the Lady Eagles were unable to return a serve by PI’s Nadia Flaig as PI now trailed 5-4. Hanna then started to build momentum as they jumped out to a 7-4 lead, forcing PI to call a timeout.
PI continued to struggle returning the ball as Hanna jumped out to a 13-6 lead. Down 7-16, PI’s Emily Burrage hit a thunderous spike to stop Hanna’s 7-1 scoring streak.
While returning a serve by Hanna, PI’s Flaig spike at the net made it a 18-10 game in favor of Hanna. Port Isabel continued to battle, but ultimately fell to Hanna 25-14.
Unfortunately, the second match played out similar to the first one as the Lady Eagles outplayed the Lady Tarpons 25-14 once again. Port Isabel head volleyball coach, Johvonne Howard stated the team has been working on “cleaning up” the offense while their defense has had “major improvements” this season.
“We made a change in our offensive scheme that increased our attempts at kills. Unfortunately, it was not enough to win a set over Hanna. We have close to 100 attempts at a kill and our production from the front line did not execute the opportunities. We will solely work on getting them stronger at utilizing the sets to score,” said Howard. “We have had two matches with 6A programs that keep the faster tempo which is great for our defense. Strong passing game was seen by Seniors Desiree Vidaurri and Halle Mata. Sophomore Libero Arianna Garcia did a great job in covering our double blocks as well.”
The Lady Tarpons next home game will be on Saturday, Sept. 21 when they take on Harvest Christian at 1 p.m. District games will begin on Sept. 24 starting with a home game versus La Feria at 6:30 p.m.
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