Marble Falls volleyball forces Ingram to hit winners

CAPTION: Marble Falls junior middle blocker Kylie Roberts stretches to keep the ball from hitting the floor with the aim of helping the Lady Mustangs win a point against Ingram Tom Moore. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro

The Marble Falls High School volleyball team lost to Ingram Tom Moore 12-25, 15-25, 12-25 Sept. 12.

Ingram (15-7, District 5-3A), which finished as the district runner-up in 2022, had fast starts in the first and second sets thanks to putting the ball into the defensive holes from just about every angle on the front row.

But in the third set, the Lady Mustangs took a 5-1 lead after winning five consecutive points behind the play of junior middle blocker Kylie Roberts. Roberts used a directional tip, a spike and a dig to help build the lead and force the Warriors into a timeout.

Ingram broke from the timeout with a renewed sense of urgency and proceeded to win the next five points to take the lead it never relinquished. And though Marble Falls called for a timeout at 5-7, the Warriors’ advantage continued.

Ingram used the net to its advantage in running an offense with a quick tempo that challenged the Lady Mustangs to be quicker to get to the spikes, Marble Falls head coach Kaitlyn Goertz said.

“Ingram is always good, they’re always strong,” she said. “They’re efficient in what they do. They ran a lot of quick sets on us.”

The accuracy in the Warriors’ spikes led to plenty of points. Ingram made very few hitting errors and showed an ability to put the ball in any hole throughout the match. And though Roberts, junior outside hitter Mia Trejo, and senior middle blocker Alexis Dalton covered the net and Marble Falls used four defensive specialists on serve-receive, Ingram was able to end more rallies with winners than with errors.

Many times throughout the match, the Warriors’ defensive specialists turned solid Marble Falls hits into digs that started their offense.

“We looked for a lot of different ways to score,” Goertz said. “They did a good job of driving the offense and trying different things.”

Marble Falls welcomes Salado at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15, to Max Copeland Gym. The sub varsities follow.

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