Lady Mustangs fall in opening game

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YORKTOWN — The first game of the season tends to highlight what needs to be worked on throughout the early goings of a season. But going against a team that made it to the regional tournament last year highlighted that even more for the Nixon-Smiley Lady Mustangs.

On Monday, newly named head coach Tara Dunn led the Lady Mustangs to Yorktown where they took on the Kitty Kats, losing the bout (25-12, 25-18, 25-12).

Despite the three-set loss, Dunn believes the efforts of her team was a “decent starting point.”

“We came out with an L,” she said, “but that means we can only go up from there. We’re kind of going through the motions and I don’t know if it’s because we were tired from this weekend or if it was because we didn’t get a chance to practice before this game, but there’s definitely room for improvement. The girls have already come a long way but we just have to keep working.”

Yorktown started the first set on a 10-3 run before Dunn had to call her first timeout of the game. Soon after, junior Karley Brassell scored on a kill, beginning a back-and-forth with Yorktown for a few serves. But with a score of 12-6, Yorktown would run away with 11-0 run to put the set out of reach for the Lady Mustangs.

The second set was a bit closer as Nixon-Smiley became more aggressive with kills coming in from Celeste Arriaga and Amanda Muñoz. Arriaga led the team with seven kills. Muñoz was right behind with five.

“We definitely were being aggressive a lot of the time,” Dunn explained, “but we need to keep working on our passing. Our passing is what’s going to win us games so we just have to keep focusing on it.”

Lexi Trammell led the team with 16 assists Monday night. Arriaga came away with two and Muñoz had one.

One of the biggest problems the Lady Mustangs had in the game was the lack of communication.

“We have a couple younger girls,” Dunn said, “and they just have to get used to playing. Talking is going to help us all over the court to prevent injuries, to be more aggressive with the ball and so that’s going to be a huge thing is just getting used to each other and being able to talk.”

The Lady Mustangs did show some fight, staying within five throughout the set until late when Yorktown took advantage of some mistakes to go up by eight. With the score at 23-15 in favor of the Kitty Kats, Nixon-Smiley and Yorktown traded points until the set ended 25-18.

At the start of the third set, Dunn cited their aggressiveness as the reason for their success.

Nixon-Smiley had their first lead of the game with an ace by Trammell. The Lady Mustangs were within two, with a score of 12-10 in favor of Yorktown until the Kitty Kats went on yet another run, increasing their lead to 20-10. The set ended with a 25-12 score.

With this being the first game of the season, Dunn believes her team needs to be aggressive and also clean up their hitting in order for success this year.

“We were kind of weak tonight on our hitting,” she said. “The girls are definitely capable but we only had four days of practice.”

“We have been working mostly on passing and so hitting is kind of the next step.”

Nixon-Smiley traveled to Shiner yesterday and will finish up their tournament bid today before heading to Kenedy for another game on Tuesday.

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