Lady Cardinals clinch district title

SHINER — Shiner St. Paul didn’t even think about the implications of the game Tuesday as the Lady Cardinals took down Universal City First Baptist Academy (UCFBA) in three sets, (25-15, 25-18, 25-15). But after playing their second game in as many days, it makes sense that the team’s focus is strictly on winning the next one.

“It never even crossed my mind,” Cardinals’ head coach Kayla Natho said of the district clinching win. “We go out here every match and we have the same goals. We want to be intense and we want to play every ball like it’s our last point we’re going to play. If we do that then we’re going to come out on top.”

The Lady Cardinals came out with a different look Tuesday night as Natho added more seniors to the lineup as well as moved Grace Irvin to the middle and Parker Clay on the right side.

“Parker is a big block on the right side,” Natho explained. “Grace is quick in the middle, gets to the ball, closes the block so they do what they need to.”

Early on in the first set, the Lady Cardinals struggled with serving.

“Our serving started off very badly,” Natho admitted, “but it got better.”

Indeed, the serving did get better as Allie Kutac came away with six aces. Delynn Pesek, Mallory Grabarkievtz and Irvin had one each.

Grabarkievtz also had 20 assists and five digs in the game.

“I thought Mallory did a great job of spreading the offense out, distributing the ball,” Natho said.

The win Tuesday night move St. Paul to 5-0 in the four-team district while dropping UCFBA to 3-2, thus clinching another district title for the Lady Cardinals. They played again yesterday, their third bout in four games, against San Antonio Christian Academy though results were unavailable before press time. The Lady Cardinals then travel to Austin to take on Hill Country Christian at 6 p.m. as a playoff warm-up game.