Marble Falls volleyball sweeps Lampasas
CAPTION: Marble Falls senior athlete Kate McCary has several ways of scoring points for the Lady Mustangs, which keeps opponents guessing at what she’ll do next. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro
The Marble Falls High School volleyball team defeated Lampasas in a 3-0 sweep to win the head-to-head matchup in District 24-4A.
The puts the Lady Mustangs (13-13, 4-6) within a couple of wins to end a playoff drought. The program hasn’t advanced to the postseason since 2009.
But first, Marble Falls will play in the final week of the regular season against opponents that head coach Zoey Beard-Hanrahan believes will bring their best against her Lady Mustangs.
First is a home match against Taylor Tuesday, Oct. 21, with the subvarsities playing at 5 p.m. and the varsity to follow. Between the matches, the Marble Falls program will honor its seniors — Tessie Bowen, Kenadi Dalton, Payton Dunk, Kate Dykes, Kate McCary and Lily Stein — then go through warm-ups for their match against the Lady Ducks.
“They’ll have no interruptions so we can keep things as set to schedule as possible,” Beard-Hanrahan said. “My girls are so excited. Finally they’re changing this culture and trend of this program. This is going to mean the world to them, especially my senior girls. There are six of them who will be heading out the door and some of them won’t play volleyball ever again. We’re not just playing for this program, but we’re playing for our seniors. We’re playing for the change we want to bring to this program.”
Then they travel to Jarrell to end the regular season Friday, Oct. 24, with the subvarsities playing at 5 p.m. and the varsity to follow.
Because Jarrell and Taylor split the two head-to-head matchups, Jarrell must beat Georgetown Gateway Tuesday, Oct. 21, to force a one-match, winner-take-all contest against the Lady Mustangs if Marble Falls loses to Taylor on the same night and to the Lady Cougars on the final night of the regular season.
But if Marble Falls beats Taylor and Gateway prevails against Jarrell, the Lady Mustangs will have five district wins to the Lady Cougars’ three with one match remaining. In short, mathematically, Jarrell couldn’t force a play-in contest for the final playoff berth if the Lady Cougars beat the Lady Mustangs at the end of the week.
Beard-Hanrahan said her Lady Mustangs aren’t looking at it that way.
“I want to end on a strong note going into that first playoff round,” she said. “They’re excited, they’re pumped and yeah they’ve all got their minds set.”
The coach noted the Lady Mustangs “started off kind of slow” to begin the match against Lampasas.
“We didn’t get to the pace that we want to get to,” she said. “And the head coach over at Lampasas (Ali Tippie) has done really good things with these girls, some things I didn’t see the first time we played against them.”
She noted the Lady Badgers’ hitting was better the second time the two teams faced off.
“They just swung at everything,” Beard-Hanrahan said. “And they were hard swings, and it was awesome. It was awesome to see the progression, so they gave us a fight. We were prepared for it, but it was more than I think what we saw that first time around.”
One big point of emphasis that Beard-Hanrahan has been preaching to her players is they should prepare for opponents that have improved in the days after they played Marble Falls in the first round.
“They have progressed the same way you have progressed,” she said. “It’s one of those things that I need you guys to not think this is going to be an easy win or whatever is in your brains. You need to still go out there and do the job that needs to be done. And we did. Again, we just started a little bit slow in that first set, and then we caught our wind and that second and third and I was very proud of our outcome.”
McCary and junior hitter Katie Terrell led the offensive efforts, while Dalton continues to anchor the back row.
“My setters were feeding Kate and Katie,” the coach said. “They both just had really smart plays. I love that both of them can swing hard, but what’s even better is when you need them to be smart with placement, they both just have that ball control to do that job. Kenadi stood out to me. Her serve was fantastic.”
In addition to the varsity winning, the freshmen also took care of business, while the junior varsity lost in a tough battle, Beard-Hanrahan said.
She is looking for the subvarsities to replicate what they did in the first round of district play – beat Taylor and Jarrell.
“Which was really exciting in our first round,” the coach said. “So I’m hoping to keep that trend going.”
CAPTION: Junior hitter Katie Terrell keeps opponents off balance with her accurate hits all over the court. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro
