For the first time since falling to Fairfield in the bi-district championship last November, Lady Tiger volleyball was back in action.
The Blue-and-Gold, with five returning members of that playoff squad, faced Milano, Thorndale and district foe Rogers in ascrimmage at RHS with games played Saturday morning and the earlyafternoon.
First-year head coach Melanie Seltzer, who was an assistant for the 2021 team, is excited about the progress her team has made after the opening week of practices.“We looked good,” she said. “Wewere connecting a lot more on offense and our defense is improving.”
“We’re running a different defense from last year, so we’ve been going hyper-speed in terms of re-teaching things,” she added.
During Saturday’s outing with theirMilam County neighbors and a district power, returning players Yolianna Castillo, Saige Robertson, Julie Bartsch, Alyssa Davilla and Halle Jimenez and some of the team’s newest additions such as Molly Moody, Makena Lopez, Laylee Lankford and Georgia Woodwardward had the chance to see where they stand within the group.
Going forward, Seltzer says“We were kind of figuring out where people were going to fit on the team,” she said. “But I think we solidified that, and we’re moving things a lot faster and smoothing some things out.” her squad will take more time to continue working on defense, with emphasis onimproving their blocking.
THIS WEEK—The Lady Tigers faced Milano in their first regular season game
See VOLLEYBALL, page 2B of the season.
They head to Navasota this weekend for their first tourney of the fall, playing in their first game at 9:30 a.m. The Lady Tigers are also scheduled to play at 12:30 p.m. and right after that at 2:30 as well.
The Blue-and-Gold also play at NHS on Saturday. Game times are dependent on their results from Thursday.
MILANO—In her 30th year as head coach of the Lady Eagle volleyball team, Wendy King has some familiar faces on her team including Aaliyah McBrewer, Malina Gordon, Kylee Harris, Kadance Koenig and Montgomery Popham. King also has some new faces, including MHS sophomore ShakevaGooden.
MHS faced the Lady Tigers on Tuesday after press time and stay close to home this weekend to open tourney play in Cameron.
According to MaxPreps, they face Rosebud-Lott on Thursday at 1 p.m. in the Lady Yoe Tournament. They will also play there on Saturday.
THORNDALE—With longtime head coach Angel Raines now an administrator at Milano, THS assistant Steve King is the new head coach for the Lady Dog volleyball team and has an array of experience returning to his team, that made the regional-quarterfinals last season.
Among those returning are Kinley Meadors, Hadley Meadors, Natalie Garcia, Natalie Newton, LandriMartinka, Abby Dickerson, Makaelyn Vivas, Kassidy Eubanks, Kyndal Robinson, Emily Reeves and Raeghan Carlson, who didn’t finish the year last season after committing to play softball with the University of North Carolina.
The Lady Dogs hosted Austin’s Brentwood Christian School and Copperas Cove in a tri-match on Tuesday after the release of this week’sReporter,and head west to Williamson County this weekend to play in the Georgetown ISD Tournament.
THS has games with host Georgetown (11 a.m.), La Vernia (2 p.m.) and Little River-Academy (3 p.m.) on Thursday.
Times for Friday and Saturday games are dependent on Thursday’s results.
Above, Milano sophomores Shakeva Gooden (L) and Kylee Harris (R) take part in their first scrimmage of the season at Rockdale High School on Saturday morning. At right, Thorndale’s Natalie Newton makes a play at the net later in the day on that same court at RHS.
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