Lady Cats advance after three-game sweep

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WAELDER — It’s been over a decade since the Lady Wildcats have won a playoff game but the 2016 Waelder volleyball squad did just that Tuesday night, knocking off Dime Box in three sets (25-22, 25-23, 25-19).

After coming out of a very tough district winless, Waelder still was playoff bound due to UIL creating a 1A bracket for volleyball. The Lady Cats were just one of two 1A teams in their district, therefore making it the bi-district round.

But even with the winless district record, Waelder was able to knock off Dime Box for their first playoff win in a while.

“I think it was the girls believing in themselves and believing they can win this game,” Lady Cats head coach Martha Zuniga said. “That was the biggest thing. And playing as a team. Their passing, their setting, the hitting game was key when we needed it.”

In the first set, the Wildcats were up by as much as 21-15 before Dime Box ran off five straight to cut within one. But then Waelder was able to fix their mistakes and force the Lady Longhorns to commit mistakes of their own, as Waelder finished the set on a 4-2 run to win 25-22.

The second set is where Waelder showed their resiliency yet again, down 21-19 late. After getting the serve back on an error by Dime Box, Bri Montgomery knocked in two straight aces to tie the game at 22. An attack error by Montgomery gave Dime Box the 23-22 lead, but then a kill by Laisha Rangel and two straight kills by Honesty Fields gave the Lady Wildcats the 25-23 win.

Former Waelder head coach and current Dime Box head coach Joel Williams expressed his happiness toward his former team, despite, of course, wanting the win. He explained that their resiliency has always been a positive in the program.

“I’m very happy for the Waelder girls,” Williams said. “I mean, I’m ecstatic for them, they’re a really great group of girls. I know the tough district they play in and like I said, they’ve always struck me as having so much courage, going out in that district, never quitting, no one ever leaves the team, they go out match after match and they show a lot of resilience. We had the ball and we had the lead and they didn’t give up and they outplayed us.”

In the third set, DIme Box again took a lead, this time 15-13, before Waelder ran off five straight to regain a lead they would not relinquish for the rest of the set.

“[The win] says a lot about [our team],” Zuniga said. “It says that they have the ‘never quit’ attitude, they don’t give up and that’s the biggest thing we pride ourselves on is believing that we can get the job done and again that’s our word for the year, we believe in ourselves, we believe until the game is over. Whether we win or lose the set we come back and we try again, the next one.”

Zuniga called the win a total team effort, saying this was the first time she can say that “they came together as a team and everybody gave a fair effort.”

Despite the one, a glaring issue the Wildcats will need to fix is their serving.

We will go back to the drawing board with serves, but we do practice everything,” Zuniga noted. “In practices we make sure to break down everything, we practice passing, serving, setting and hitting but that’s something we’ll concentrate on for the next game and ensure that our missed serves go back to three or four for the entire match. We missed quite a few and that’s something we try to pride ourselves on is not missing serves. Every game it comes to something. You’re either not going to serve well, pass well or hit well…something is not going to be there. It’s coming together with the rest of the stuff that helps win games.”

Waelder hoped to get another playoff win as they took on Leakey, a district champion, last night in Boerne though results were unavailable before press time.

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