Marble Falls volleyball continues pushing district opponents

CAPTION: The Marble Falls Lady Mustangs honor senior Sadie Harris (kneeling) for earning her 500th career kill during the loss to Georgetown Gateway Sept. 26. Courtesy photo

The Marble Falls High School volleyball team lost to Georgetown Gateway 18-25, 8-25, 23-25 Sept. 26.

Afterward, the program honored senior Sadie Harris, who recorded her 500th career kill.

“It was a big kill from the right side,” head coach Kait Goertz said. “It was not some soft hit or anything like that. She put that ball away.”

The Lady Mustangs (0-2 in District 24-4A) were down 0-2 before getting the next four points behind a spike and a block by senior Ashlynn Skero.

The two teams matched each other point for point, and the Gators (2-0 in district) started getting the separation by running a complex offense that had fake jumps that led to a 10-5 advantage and forced Marble Falls into a timeout.

Gateway won 15 of the next 28 points to take the first set. The Lady Mustangs’ 13 points were the result of a kill, directional tip and kill off a block by Harris, an ace and spike by junior Mia Trejo, and a spike by senior middle blocker Alexis Dalton.

In the next set, the Gators raced to a 7-4 lead and reached point No. 20 by the time the Lady Mustangs had its eighth point in the set.

The third set looked much like the first with each team matching each other point for point.

“I told them they had to reset mentally,” Goertz said. “We’re now at 0-0. They had to attack the first 5 points.”

Though Gateway took a 12-6 lead, Marble Falls rallied.

A double block by senior blocker Ava Carter and Dalton got the Lady Mustangs a valuable point. Then Marble Falls scored five consecutive points thanks to a Trejo kill, a block by junior middle blocker Kylie Roberts and senior Kaley Smith, a solo block by Roberts, and two Carter aces to trim the deficit to 13-15.

But Gateway won five of the next six points for a 20-14 advantage that forced Marble Falls into a timeout. Harris scored on a directional tip and off a block while Carter added a point from a dump and Trejo scored on a kill that cut into the Gateway lead at 23-21.

Two hitting errors and a service error allowed Gateway to escape with the win.

“In the first and third sets, we competed,” Goertz said. “We went point for point with them. But we never could close the gap in the first set. In the third set, we closed the gap, but we never could overcome it.”

Carter set Harris quite a bit at the beginning of the contest and then moved the ball to a different hitter to keep the Gateway defenders guessing. Goertz noted much of that comes from Carter’s understanding of the sport and her teammates.

“Ava has a high IQ; she knows the game,” the coach said. “She knows how to set and knows who has the hot hand.”

While errors dictated the outcome of the last set, Goertz credited the Gators for knocking down many balls for winners using the dump, the directional tip and spikes that went down the line, to the middle of the court, and cross court.

“They minimized their errors,” she said. “We made them earn those points. Now we have to finish the play. We have to take command and end it ourselves.”

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