Lady Apaches hold off Lady Mustangs

The observation was made that, had Gonzales and Nixon-Smiley been playing under the UIL’s old “serve-to-score” rules rather than under modern international rules, Tuesday’s volleyball match might still be going on.
As it was, the Lady Apaches managed to pull away from the stubborn Lady Mustangs to take a 25-17, 20-25, 25-18, 25-17 victory in non-district action.
“I’ve noticed that we just don’t seem to know how to win,” said Gonzales assistant coach Holly Long, managing the Lady Apaches in the absence of coach Kim Payne. “The group can definitely change it around, but they have to get that killer instinct. Not having a killer instinct is going to get us in district.”
Gonzales made a habit during Tuesday’s match of getting comfortably ahead, then getting comfortable as the Lady Mustangs would battle back.
The Lady Apaches jumped out to an early 11-3 lead in the first game, and led 17-9 at one point as N-S had problems getting its defense coordinated. But just when it looked like Gonzales would put it away, the Lady Mustangs rallied for seven straight points on the serve of Jessica Flores.
Hailey Boatwright accounted for two of the points with a block and a spike, but three points came on mis-hits by the Lady Apaches and Nixon-Smiley got another when a Gonzales player hit the net. A kill by Whitney Stefinsky finally ended the run, and Kylie Braune came on to serve up six points to put Gonzales back in front 23-16. Maria Aguayo’s diving save that crawled over the net accounted for the winning point in the game.
Nixon-Smiley led from start to finish in the second game, paced by strong serving by Abigail Scarborough, who recorded three aces. The Lady Apaches closed to within two points a couple of times before Scarborough slammed home a spike through a block attempt by Marlena Hunt to record the winner.
In the third game, Gonzales again took command early before the Lady Mustangs battled back to make it close. An ace by allison Raley and a spike point by Brittany Pakebusch helped stake Gonzales to a 15-5 lead, but Nixon-Smiley rallied late on D’Laine Palacio’s service and some heads-up defense by Ashlynn Maldonado to close the gap to 20-18. The Lady Apaches finally closed it out on Carly Bozka’s service as Raley slammed home three kills and Hunt and Shayla Simper took charge at the net.
Gonzales went on a five-point run early in the fourth game and added another seven-point run on Raley’s serve to charge out to a 23-10 lead. Nixon-Smiley came back again, however, and closed it to 23-17 before a Braune serve was returned wide for the match point.
“We still have to finer-tune some things,” Long said. “We have to move our feet, we keep getting caught out of position. Our jhitting has improved a lot, we just need to move our feet more.”