Victory bus makes final stop
Lady Hornets finish season in regional quarterfinals with Shiner loss
By KRIS BAGLEY sports@leader-news.com

The Lady Hornet volleyball team made their final road trip of the year Tuesday when they traveled to Cuero to play Shiner, where they lost 3-1. Smiling out of the bus windows are (above, l-r) Beverly Holik, Lauren Gresham, Sarah Williamson, Amanda Popp, Gabby Foster, Kirsten Machicek, Kelsi Kutac, Kierra Thornton and Katie Brown. Amber Bain (below) delivers a pass in Louise's playoff win against Thrall. Contributed Photo

Before the school year started, Bryan Branch took his Lady Hornet volleyball team into the gym and talked about Louise's recent athletic achievements.

He pointed to banners for boys and girls basketball, track and several other areas. The only sport missing was volleyball.

Now, 26 wins and 14 losses later, including a 10-0 record in district play and 1-1 record in the playoffs, it's time for Louise to order a new banner.

As head coach of the Lady Hornets, Branch said he is stunned at the progress that has occurred over one season.

"It's beyond our expectations to what we honestly thought we were capable of at the beginning of the year," Branch said. "That's all to them. They put in the hard work and they listened. I give all the credit to the girls. They're very coachable."

L-N Photo by Kris Bagley

The Lady Hornets surprising season came to an end Tuesday with a loss to Shiner in the regional quarterfinals - the third round of the playoffs.

Louise played Shiner, currently voted by the Texas Girls Coaches Association as the seventh best Class A team in the state, closely in a challenging match.

The Lady Comanches won the first two games with scores of 25-21 and 25-15. Louise came back to win game three 25-23, but Shiner finished the match in game four with a 25-19 score for a 3-1 win.

The match featured a pair of evenly-matched teams. Branch said Shiner's victory simply came down to a few mistakes that were taken care of in Louise's game-three win.

"In the three games that we lost, there was a period of about four or fivestraight points that we serve received poorly," Branch said. "We'd either shank it out of bounds or end up free-balling it over to them.

"We'd give them fiveor six points and we just never could recover. The rest of the game would be back and forth even. The game we won, we never got in that lull and they had a few more mistakes than we did. I think that was the difference in the match."

To prepare for the Lady Comanches' hitters, Branch opted for a defensive adjustment that he said worked well. The move helped Louise on the back row and took away presence at the net. After the loss, Branch was positive that he made the right move. It was reflected in the team's stats.

"Normally, we have more people closer and playing the tips," Branch said. "We backed one person off and played three across. That one person was Kelsey Kutac and she had a fantastic game and dug up a lot of balls for us."

The move helped the Lady Hornets tally 65 total digs. Kutac led the defense with 21.

"I thought we dug it up pretty good," Branch said. "They hit it on us, but for the most part, I thought we hung with them on that matter. I really think the difference was that we sent a few more free-balls over than they did and they got more opportunities to attack than we did.

"When you're in that round of the playoffs, you can't make more mistakes than the other team because both teams, I feel, were very equal. If we don't commit those errors, who knows what happens."

Branch said the effort his team gave on the court was exceptional and he had no doubt that the match with Shiner was one of his teams' best performances.

"I'm very pleased and proud with the way we played, he said. "I thought our hitters hit well, Kirsten (Machicek) set the ball well, we still had some serving errors like we've had all year, but disappointed is not the word. I'm very pleased. It's the regional quarterfinals. You're one game away from the regional tournament. There's nothing but good things to say."

The head coach said this team was unique this year in their chemistry. The Lady Hornets rolled to their greatest season since volleyball was reinstated at Louise with high spirits. It turns out this group of girls is not just a great team, but also great friends.

"I don't think I've ever had a team get along as well as this team has gotten along," Branch said. "If someone makes a bad pass, they're not getting mad at them. They're giving them a high fivesaying, 'don't worry about it.' They all realize that we're in this together. Everyone accepted their roles, knew what their roles were and knew collectively, if they banned together, they would accomplish more than everybody pulling off in a different direction.

"That's something I told them at the beginning of the year, 'The faster we get on the same page, the faster we're going to be successful.' From day one, they've gotten on the same page. I told the parents that it makes coaching them easy. I don't have to coach attitude, effort and those things like that. I can just coach the sport and the skill and not have to worry about someone pouting, being upset or people being mad at each other. It's been an absolute joy to coach them."