Faith Academy volleyball beats San Juan Diego, Lutheran

CAPTION: Senior outside hitter Kerrington Silvers (right) doesn’t hesitate when the ball comes her way in knowing what to do. Photos by Stennis Shotts

The Faith Academy of Marble Falls volleyball team won both of its District 4-3A home matches last week.

The Lady Flames defeated Austin San Juan Diego 25-17, 25-10, 25-10 Sept. 10 and San Antonio Lutheran 25-23, 25-9, 25-12 Sept. 8. All are members of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools.

“That was good,” head coach Rebekah Silvers said. “That was nice for us to be home. We love to play at home. Every district game matters, and we definitely want to execute at a high level no matter who we’re playing. We won both of our matches this past week in three, which always feels good. ”

Faith edged Lutheran in the first set, and the team used that result to illustrate a point.

“It was a little bit rocky,” Silvers said. “And I think part of it was just us getting in a rhythm. We made some mistakes and then the girls were like, ‘Look, we can’t lose to them.’ And then here we go in the first set, and I’m like, ‘Girls, what are we doing? We’re making silly mistakes, we’re running into each other.’ It was not Faith volleyball. I won’t say it was disastrous but for a moment, there was like ‘we might lose this first set and this is going to be awful.’ But they pulled it together, we won and then it was like, ‘OK, let’s get to business, please. Let’s finish this up in two sets and get out of here,’ and we did.”

San Juan Diego’s defensive specialists forced the Lady Flames to earn every point.

“They were pretty good at returning our hits,” Silvers said. “We got it together and both of the girls had some great kills, but like I said, it’s kind of like those games that feel a little bit slower paced, competitive wise, but we really just have to focus on taking care of business, working on things we practiced, working on our coverage from the blocks – those kinds of things are really big in those games.”

Senior hitter Kerrington Silvers and junior athlete Ella Claiborne each had 10 kills.

“Sometimes we are volleying way too much,” she said. “We just need to hit it hard so they can’t return it. I feel like both of our games last week were kind of like that – just felt like they kind of went on forever each match, each set because it was too much volleying back and forth. We just really needed to have an Ella or a Kerrington kill and just be done.”

Overall, Rebekah Silvers believes the matches served a bigger purpose.

“One of the biggest things we try to do is not play down,” she said. “Sometimes we get caught up doing that when we play a team that we feel like is maybe just not as great. Against San Juan, it was good. They came, played hard. I don’t want to change our approach at all based on who we’re ever playing. I want us to play well every time we get on the court, I want us to execute all the things we’ve been working on. Our goal is to continually get better every single game, so it doesn’t matter who we’re playing. We have to knock them out one at a time, we have to play well no matter who we’re facing, because that’s just how you get your wins in the district.”

Faith welcomes Bulverde Bracken Christian Tuesday, Sept. 15, then travels to play at San Marcos Academy Thursday, Sept. 17, with the junior varsity playing at 5:30 p.m. and the varsity at 6:30 p.m.

CAPTION: Faith Academy junior athlete Ella Claiborne does plenty for the Lady Flames including putting the ball down for points.