I’m sorry. I’m depressed for no really good reason. This was even after watching the Texas Rangers’ World Series victory parade today. I didn’t even go out for anything to eat. I could not get up for this penultimate Aggie Volleyball home match. Writing up this fairly dramatic match is going to be a labor. Sorry in advance.
The Pan-Am Center
side parking lot was blocked coming in.
There’s the Homecoming Football
game going on tomorrow. There were a
bunch of RV’s and trailers parked out there, so there might be a great crowd present
for the Aggies to possibly clinch a bowl bid.
After entering, I had no trouble spotting beautiful star
alumni Megan Hart by the Aggie
bench. At 6’5”, she’s easy to pick out
of a crowd. Megan was on crutches,
though. I wonder if she’s still playing
somewhere professionally. (PA Ed gave
her a fist bump while walking past her.)
Annie Acosta was also there,
along with a couple other alumni, probably for Homecoming. They were honored on court during a
break. Former star player, Katie Birtcil was there, but she wasn’t
with honored the group. I can’t explain
that.
Tonight, we had radio.
I also had the loudest fans in the arena sitting behind me, so I wasn’t
able to hear Adam Young’s call all
of the time. From his pregame, I found
out that tonight’s foe, the Sam Houston
Bearkats, were 1-13 in conference.
They were playing to just get into the postseason tournament and need to
sweep their next four matches. The
Aggies are only in the middle of the pack, but sweeping their next four matches
could get them a much better seed.
The Bearkats are a pretty good-looking team. They were also fairly tall. They didn’t have anybody really short, though
they also didn’t have anybody really tall like Megan. Their setter came from the same Texas high
school of our Darian Markham. That must be a heck of program there. A couple of their injured players (I’m
guessing) that were holding clipboards were really good looking. Even one of their assistant coaches was cute,
though she looked like she’d had a hard season.
On the Aggie side fashion-wise, Alex Connaster had were hair up and in braids. She let out an uncharacteristic loud shout
while hitting in practice. Peyton Castillo on the bench, had her
long, curly hair straightened out for tonight.
My favorite, Maggie Lightheart,
was popping and locking on court to the music.
I can’t wait for her to become a star player. (Neither can Coach Jordan.) I noticed
that Assistant Coach Hertel wasn’t
here. The setters were no longer sitting
with Assistant Coach Whitis and were
back with the reserves. Are they out of
the doghouse?
The crowd was a bit lighter at just over 1000. There weren’t any little girls teams there
tonight. One of the suites was in
use. (I need to figure out how to get up
there.) The warm up music was upbeat in
contrast to Monday. I was enjoying Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence. I forgot that Friday was free popcorn night
with a soda purchase. I’d eaten a
sandwich right before leaving and wasn’t hungry.
Set
1
I can’t do a point-by-point recap tonight. Sorry.
The score was fairly close early, but the Aggies were staying ahead with
kills from the usual suspects. The main
scoreboard scoring stopped working early, but the old side scoreboard kept
up. 13-10 Aggies, Mari Sharp did one of her flying kills from the backcourt that was
a real crowd-pleaser. 15-11 Aggies, Starr Williams finished the point with
a kill off a great bump set by Rilen
Garcia. Mari also had a great dig on
the point.
This took us into the Media Timeout. PA Ed announced that Aggie Soccer had just beaten Sam Houston at the C-USA tournament, 2-0. (Gia
Valenti scored both.) That was kind
of cold to drop that into this game.
Soccer will be playing for the championship on Sunday. From here, the Aggies finished the set off in
dominating fashion. Bianca Perez, after having kind of a rough set with her setting,
went on a 10-point serving run to finish it, 25-12. That was kind of
awesome.
Set
2: Aggies 1, Bearkats 0
The scoreboard started working again. The Aggies went down early, 4-8 SH. Starr got a kill to break their four-point
run. 7-9 SH, the officials disagreed on
the call and initially gave it to the Aggies.
A challenge reversed it to 6-10 and then the Bearkats added an ace right
after. A service error ended another
four-point SH run.
A challenge went the Aggies’ way to make it, 13-15 SH. After another SH service error and a shot out,
it was tied at 17. SH took a
timeout. They came back taking the next
two points, which led to an Aggie timeout.
Ryleigh Whitekettle broke the
run with a kill off a block, but the Bearkats came back with four-point lead,
18-22. Timeout Aggies.
Ry and Ashley
Herman came out of the break with kills.
After a net violation tied it at 22, SH took a timeout. It didn’t help. Mari aced and Ash and Kacia Brown combined on a block.
Ryleigh finished of the comeback and set victory with a kill, 25-22 Aggies. Rilen gave her a beauty of a set with a
little misdirection, as she pointed at the other side of the court before
setting her. It was a seven-point serving
run by Mari to finish the set out. The
crowd went berserk during it.
Set
3: Aggies 2, Bearkats 0
I noticed Annie getting water from the sidelines for
Megan and the other people she was sitting with. Who’s going to say, “No?” The Aggies went down early again. 3-5 SH, Ryleigh got a kill off an accidental
touch. She came out and got a lecture
from the Coach for being lucky.
The Aggies tied it at 5, 7, 8, and 9. Mari dropped a sledgehammer and gave the
Aggies a 10-9 lead. They’d keep it for a
few points, before losing it, 14-15 SH, at the Media timeout. Starr would tie it at 15 with a kill, but the
Aggies wouldn’t retake the lead. Ry tied
it at 19 with a kill and she was more fired up than I’d seen her before. Her and Aleka had blocks on the point.
19-21 SH, Ry was blocked. Timeout Aggies. Coach Jordan just talked to Bianca for the
whole break. Coach Whitis made a brief
comment to the rest of the team, but they otherwise talked amongst
themselves. I could see some of them
cutting up a little. Ry came back with a
tip, but a service error by Rilen and an ace by the Bearkats finished the set, 20-25 SH.
Set
4: Aggies 2, Bearkats 1
The Aggies went straight down 0-4 and the Coach took a
timeout. Ryleigh got the first Aggie
point on a hard-fought point right after.
Ashley had an off court save by Adam at the press table. The Aggies went down by four again. 9-11 SH, Ry showed off some raw power on a
kill and tried to fire the team up again.
9-14 SH, Bianca was called for an illegal attack. Ryleigh was next called for a net violation. She couldn’t believe it. She was also called for a touch on a
kill. At 12-17 SH, the Coach was so
angry, he got in the faces of the reserves and started yelling at them. 13-18 SH, timeout Aggies. Coach Jordan, furious, now had the
opportunity to chew out the players who were playing on court.
13-19 SH, another net violation was called. The Coach challenged it, but the call
stood. The Aggies managed to claw their
way back into it. Starr hit a soft kill
into the corner to make it 16-19. SH
took a timeout. 18-19 SH, Starr brought
the thunder with a kill and got the crowd back into it. She did it with a tip at 19-20.
Ry tooled a block at 20-21. 21-22 SH, a Bearkat service error. The player came out and was upset with
herself. Ashley had a block and Ryleigh
got another kill, but they couldn’t get the Aggies back to even. The Bearkats took the set, 23-25, off a blocking error by Kacia.
Set
5: Aggies 2, Bearkats 2
Suddenly, the sharp Aggies showed back up. They took 6 of the first 8 points. There were a couple of challenges, but
nothing was overturned. SH came back on
a block of Ryleigh to make it 6-5 Aggies, and the Coach took a timeout. Rilen’s misdirection on setting Ry had worked
at least three times in the match, but SH eventually caught on.
Ashley got a kill out of the break and Maggie came in to
serve. She’d almost come in earlier in
the set, but had been waived off. Maggie
bump set Starr, who tooled a block for the point. Kacia then got a kill. 10-5 Aggies, Maggie hit the tape on her serve
and it fell over for an ace. Timeout
SH.
The Bearkats hit out on the next point. Maggie dove flat out for a dig during the
point. On the next point, she hit the
tape again, but this time it fell back on the Aggie side. That was a four-point serving run, not
bad. The Aggies finished it out 15-7 on
a SH shot out and the match, 3-2. Cue the music and the fans doing the Aggie
cheer. Wait a second, the SH coach
challenged the point and it was overturned.
The Aggies won it 15-8 on a
point that nearly was nearly a duplicate of the previous one. No challenge this time. We’re done!
I stuck around for a little bit to listen to the radio
postgame. I wrote down some stats, but
was disappointed that the coach didn’t come on for commentary. Actually, he made quick speech to the team
and they all seemed unhappy afterward.
Maybe I didn’t want to hear what he had to say tonight.
Maggie and Bella
Castro, who served for Ryleigh during the most of the match, came up into
the crowd to hug family members. I
started up the steps and suddenly ran into Ashley talking to some people. I wanted to tell her, “Good game,” in passing
by, but unfortunately the stairs were blocked with people. I got tired of waiting and went to the other
side. So much for meeting any of the
players this season.
Ryleigh
Whitekettle led all scorers with 20 kills. I haven’t heaped enough praise on
Ryleigh. She’s been so steadily brilliant
this season, you just take her for granted.
Three other Aggies scored in double digits: Kacia Brown with 12 (and 9 blocks), Ashley Herman 10 kills (5 blocks), and Starr Williams 10 kills. The
Bearkats had three players in double digits led by McKenzie Morvant with 15.
The Aggies were up 13 to 7 in blocks.
The Bearkats were up 7 to 4 in aces.
Both had 7 service errors. The
Aggies hit .306 (63 kills) with the Bearkats only hitting .146 (53 kills). Darian
Markham sold out with 20 digs.
I agree with Adam’s assessment. I can’t quite figure out how the Aggies let
this go to five sets. Not just that,
they were playing from behind in the three of the sets. The girls looked so sharp in the first and
fifth sets and at the end of the second set, but were otherwise very
beatable. Usually, when teams go on really
long serving runs, it’s because the teams are badly mismatched in talent. I don’t want to take anything away from Sam
Houston’s efforts. They were playing for
something. The Bearkats looked like they
should be a better team than their record.
I had trouble getting out of the parking lot again, even though most of the crowd had cleared out. I’m somewhat concerned about ***tomorrow’s game,*** since the parking lot will have the Football crowd showing up. I won’t be going to that game, but I plan on listening. I really got miserably depressed during volleyball, not even because of the play, but I’ll be there tomorrow. Maybe getting something to eat afterward will pick up my spirits.
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