Lady Mustangs lose second straight match

The Nixon-Smiley Lady Mustangs (6-8) closed out their non-district matches with a three-set loss to the Shiner Lady Comanches (17-9) on Tuesday, Sept. 6.

The Lady Mustangs kept all three sets as close as five points, but it wasn’t enough to get past Shiner’s early multi-point runs.

Nixon-Smiley head volleyball coach Loraine Zuniga said despite the loss to Shiner, there were some moments in the sets that her team was rallying and thought they did well making some adjustments.

“I told the girls we just have to be the team that's not making the last mistake on the long rallies or keep making the same mistake multiple times,” Zuniga said. “But I think that we've done a good job setting ourselves up for the competition we're going to see in district.”

Facing teams like Shiner and Three Rivers in the last two matches of non-district play set the Lady Mustangs in line for a tough district road.

Nixon-Smiley will travel to Marion on Sept. 9, to kick off district, and Zuniga knows the last two games have mentally prepared for Friday’s district match.

“We are in a pretty tough district, but we’re used to seeing hitters like we saw against Three Rivers and the hitter in Shiner. That helps us make those adjustments as far as our defense is concerned,” Zuniga said.

The Lady Mustangs will face a Marion team with a 5-9 record, but Zuniga and her team will continue to get ready for district regardless of who’s the first opponent.

“We kind of know what we're going to be working towards [in prep of Marion] the next couple of days in practice,” Zuniga said “But it's just making sure that we're just going out there ready to play either way and then being able to make the in-game adjustments as well.”

Nixon-Smiley travels on the road to Marion this Friday for the district opener. Game starts at 5 p.m.