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WEB ONLY: Manvel ousted in bi-district round
Published November 4, 2009
SUGAR LAND — As the fourth place team out of District 24-4A, the Manvel Lady Mavericks weren’t supposed to give District 23-4A champ Foster much of a match. And even though the Lady Falcons swept the Class 4A Region III bi-district match Tuesday in three games — 25-10, 25-20, 25-18 — it turned out to be a tougher than Foster expected.
“We came out and I thought they played their hearts out,” Manvel head coach Raheanna Stahl Arnold said. “I couldn’t have asked them to do much more. They came out and had a David and Goliath match and they did the best they could.”
Manvel (18-17) got off to a rocky start as the Foster showed its strength with junior Taylor Whileyman from the outside along with sophomore Erin Fairs in the middle. Both came up with some big shots in the first game that set the tone right away.
Whileyman started it off with a thundering kill on the first point and the Lady Falcons jumped out to a 7-1 lead. Foster went on five- to six-point runs as Fairs finished off the first game with a blow off Manvel’s Kameron Yoakum.
But things turned a bit in the second game as Foster started making some miscues. After the Lady Falcons opened the second game 3-0 on a tip from Tiana Dockery and hard shot by Kelsey Alford, the Lady Mavericks started answering back.
Manvel took its first lead of the match at 4-3 after a kill from outside hitter Ali Sluismans. The Lady Mavericks increased that lead a couple of times to four-point advantages but could never break away from Foster.
The Lady Falcons finally caught up after Cara Fisher put a ball in to the net to tie the game, 11-11. There were three ties in the next 10 points as Claire Treacy knocked a big shot off the Manvel defense for a 17-16 lead.
“I thought we started off a bit slower than what we are used to,” Foster head coach Tara Domel said. “But I think we stayed steady throughout the match and tried to get our serves in and not make errors.”
Foster continued to expand its second-game lead. A Waters’ kill and an ace put the Lady Falcons up, 20-17. Manvel got as close as four points, but a long shot out of bounds by Courtney Klingler gave Foster a 2-0 game advantage.
“We knew we were going to have to serve tough and hoped we could force some passing errors on them,” Stahl said. “We wanted to keep their offense off balance, and we did that at times but it wasn’t enough. We knew they were going to be big and we just wanted to slow down their offense.”
The Lady Mavericks gave everything they had in the first 26 points of the third game. Both teams fought tooth-and-nail and traded the lead back and forth.
An ace from Whileyman that gave Foster a 14-13 lead, and from that point on it was all Lady Falcons. The Lady Mavericks got only five more points the rest of the way.
Treacy finished the match for Foster with a kill.
“We played defense a lot better than we normally do,” Domel said. “So, we are trying to pick up our defensive game because that is where we are lagging. And that is what we focused on in that match.”
Foster will move on to face Houston Wheatley in the area round.
Joel Luna is the sports editor for The Facts. Contact him at 979 237-0160.
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