Marble Falls volleyball loses to Bullard

CAPTION: The Lady Mustangs, including Amaris Mitchell-Ochoa (left), Tessie Bowen, Brighton Bernard, Deliah Guzman, Lily Stein, Kate Dykes (15) and Vivian Buerger (12), gather around Kenadi Dalton (center) to celebrate beating Rosharon Almeta Crawford for an area title in the Class 4A Division I playoffs Nov. 4. Photos by Martelle Luedecke/Luedecke Photography

The Marble Falls High School volleyball team lost to Bullard 22-25, 7-25, 23-25 Nov. 6 in the Class 4A Division I regional semifinals.

The Lady Mustangs’ (17-16, 6-6 District 24-4A fourth place) historical season ends as this 2025 team set three program records. They won bi-district and area championships for the first time and had the most wins in a single season with 17.

By accomplishing those tasks, these Lady Mustangs also earned another big reward, noted head coach Zoey Beard-Hanrahan, who completed her first season at the helm.

“Volleyball is the only sport, I believe, that doesn’t have a banner hanging in (Max Copeland) gym,” she said. “That was one of my goals I set at tryouts. I had a tough tryout. I had girls literally walk out of my tryout. I was like, ‘That’s fine.'” 

The reason was because of the running. Players were told to get on the baseline and run lines as the first task on the first day of two-a-days. Word got back to the coach that the athletes complained about it. So Beard-Hanrahan had her first heart to heart with them.

“There’s not a single volleyball banner in this gym,” she recalled saying. “What I’ve heard is that our mindset here is all wrong. We’re going to get on the line again because I want to see who my fighters are.”

That mentality is what defined this team as the Lady Mustangs began District 24-4A play with a five-set loss to Burnet in The Doghouse followed by losses to Salado and Gateway. So with their backs against the wall, they had to beat Lampasas, Taylor and Jarrell in each of the two rounds to earn the fourth playoff berth to advance to the postseason for the first time since 2009.

“I need people who are going to come out and fight for me and fight for each other,” the coach said. “Believe in each other, believe in your coaching staff because we’re going to give you the tools to get you there.”

That explains why they met the No. 6 team in Class 4A Division I Nov. 6.

The first set against Bullard “was so close, and we played a really good game,” Beard-Hanrahan said.

“I think my girls tend to let things that are out of their hands linger in their brains too long,” she said. “And because of that, Bullard was able to take that first set from us. I went out there saying, ‘We’re going to go out fighting. We are not going to beat ourselves.’ That second set was definitely beating ourselves, just mistake after mistake after mistake. We kept letting it circle in our brains, and we could not move forward.”

During the intermission between the second and third sets, the coach gathered with her players.

“‘That sets awash – forget about it,'” she recalled saying. “‘We’re winning the next three in a row.'”

But it wasn’t meant to be. Bullard junior Kalia Andrews led with 16 kills followed by seniors Aubry Norton and Brooklyn Brannen with eight each.

“They had tougher hitters than we’d seen, girls who were smart about using the block and where to place the ball,” the coach said. “I think if we could have minimized our errors in the third set, it would have been a different ball game. That first set we fought and we kept very minimum errors.”

Indeed. The Lady Mustangs had three in the first set with two coming toward the end of the game and nine in the third set.

“If we could have cleaned up our game just a little bit, I feel like it would have been a different outcome,” the coach said. “We were not done fighting, but the turnaround in playoffs is exhausting and playing (Nov. 4) and then turning around and immediately playing (Nov. 6) I think is difficult.”

She noted that with basketball starting Nov. 7, volleyball coaches believed playing a day earlier was the best course of action.

She added that playing in District 24-4A — where district champion Salado and district runner-up Georgetown Gateway will meet in the Class 4A Division II Region III final — prepared the Lady Mustangs for what they faced in the postseason.

“District 24 is so difficult,” Beard-Hanrahan said. “There’s just not a lot of teams out there like in this district that have Division I players like Salado or Gateway. What a testament to how difficult it is to get into the playoffs from the district that we play in. (Bi-district opponent0 Gatesville was a tough match and so was (area opponent Rosharon) Almeta Crawford. They were extremely tough for us, and we were just not ready to give it up.”

That’s one of many traits she’ll remember about this team, she said.

“I knew that it was going to be a challenge,” she said. “It’s so easy to see after you do something that truly amazes everybody. I made an extremely tough (pre-district schedule). And I just wanted them to know why. The reason is to prepare for such a difficult district. My girls competed. That changes our minds, our perspective. That was the thing I had to preach the most. ‘You have to believe in yourselves because you can do this, you can win, you can keep going.’ And they bought in, they were all in.”

Now that this team has made history, it’s up to a new group of Lady Mustangs to equal or surpass it.

“The younger ones see that belief in yourself can take you so far,” Beard-Hanrahan said. “We’re a force to be reckoned with. As long as that trend continues, this program will continue to grow. And it’s easy to believe in these girls. Because every day in practice, they were amazing me.

“I will never forget this season,” she added. “I’ve never seen a group of girls who just loved each other so much. They made it so easy, and honestly, I was spoiled with this group of girls. I really was. It’s going to be hard to replace the seniors I’m losing. They’re such leaders on this team, and they helped push their teammates to be better and demand more this season. It’s going to be a legacy. So they’re unforgettable. And I’ll never forget my first season coaching Marble Falls volleyball.”