Faith Academy volleyball hosts Conroe Covenant to begin postseason

CAPTION: Faith Academy sophomore Ella Claiborne reacts to her one of her 384 kills, which is tops for the Lady Flames in this category. Photo by Stennis Shotts

The Faith Academy of Marble Falls volleyball team will welcome Conroe Covenant in an area round of the Class 3A playoffs of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools.

The match begins at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4, at The Fire Pit on the Faith campus.

Lady Flames head coach Erin Sawyer said the Lady Cougars feature “a strong middle blocker and an outside hitter.”

“I think they’re on par with (District 4-3A foe San Antonio) Lutheran,” she said. “We need to make sure we come in ready. Whenever we come in, we need to be ready to play. We’ve been working on coming in ready to play.”

The Lady Flames (27-7, 10-2 District 4-3A) will lean heavily on sophomore athlete Ella Claiborne, who has 384 kills, 82 aces, 251 digs and 308 receptions, and junior Kerrington Silvers, who has 254 kills, 135 digs and 126 receptions. Senior middle blocker Natalie Weems has 117 blocks and 99 kills, while senior libero Bosley Kuker has 367 digs and 493 receptions and junior defensive specialist Ava Beltran has 135 digs and 171 receptions.

Faith must win four playoff matches to win a state title.

“We’ve been working on coming into each game ready to play,” the coach said. “We’re getting into what we’ve been working toward all season. So we have to put into play the things we’ve been practicing. It’ll be good to see them do that and go into the playoffs again.”

The Lady Flames assembled their best finish in the district race in program history – runners-up with losses only to Temple Central Texas Christian, the district champion.

“I thought it was great,” Sawyer said. “I’m very excited. When I came five years ago, I was just helping with junior high. But even then, when I did start helping (the high school program) four years ago, we won one game in district. Now this year, we are winning and we got second in our district and we’ve won 10 of those (matches). So I’m excited for all the hard work that the girls did and getting ready to tackle the district that we’re in.”

She believes district foes CTC and Waco Live Oak helped prepare her players for what’s coming in the single elimination postseason tournament.

To help the Lady Flames get ready, Sawyer scheduled a warm-up match against New Braunfels John Paul II Oct. 30. The match was four sets and Faith “tried different things just to get prepped and ready to see what works and what doesn’t work from both sides for our playoff runs,” the coach said.

CAPTION: Junior Ava Beltran serves one of her 45 aces, which ranks in the top four other team statistics this season. Also among the stat leaders are senior libero Bosley Kuker (11) and junior defensive specialist Ava Beltran. Photo by Stennis Shotts