The championship match of the Brownsville St. Joseph Academy volleyball tournament was everything one wants in a title game.
Brownsville Pace and the hosting Lady Bloodhounds battled for three sets, showing off great defense, solid serving and powerful offense. The Lady Vikings, playing in their second tournament title game in two weeks, bounced back from an opening set loss to win. Tournament MVP Andie Lozano-Lomeli aided her team’s 15-25, 25-12, 15-12 victory.
“It feels really good. We’re all so excited and hyped for the season,” Lozano-Lomeli said. “(Consecutive championship matches) definitely gives us a lot of confidence going into the season. … I felt really good. A lot of it is my setter, (Dyllan Lozano-Lomeli). She gives me a lot of great balls, and our libero gives it right to her. Without them I couldn’t have gotten any of that. It’s all my team.”
The Lady Bloodhounds used dynamite serving and a balanced attack to put away the opening set. Pace jumped out to a 12-9 lead as Natalisha Torres and Luz Martinez took control at the net. Then, St. Joseph’s Mildred Verlage led a relentless comeback. Along with Carmina Tijerina, she notched aces and kills with her heavy left-hand swing to help the Lady Bloodhounds take the set.
“I was really proud of them because they came in and played their game. They’ve got a lot of potential and a great future,” SJA coach Dolores Olguin-Trevino said. “The tandem of the opposites, Mildred and Carmina, that’s going to be a big, big plus for the team.”
Pace responded brilliantly during the second set. Torres recorded back-to-back blocks and a kill to get things started, then Andie Lozano-Lomeli was unstoppable from the middle. Pace’s coverage and passing was top-notch, helping Dyllan Lozano-Lomeli run a balanced attack that sent SJA scrambling. Torres’ serving and good hitting from the outside by Ashley Gonzalez gave the Lady Vikings an 18-2 lead before the scoring run ended.
SJA shook off five set points, but errors put them in too deep of a hole to climb out of, and Pace forced the deciding third set.
“We were making a lot of mistakes (in the first set). But they came back and did their job,” Pace coach Daya Venegas said. “We’ve been practicing a lot of defense, and I think that’s what helped us in this game. St. Joe is a pretty good team, and they didn’t let any balls drop. … I had the captain telling them, ‘We got to fight.’ And they did. That’s all we need to do, just compete, and the win comes by itself.”
Andie Lozano-Lomeli credited Venegas’ message and the “crazy workouts” she has been putting the Lady Vikings through at practice for helping them seal the deal in the third. The championship was played in SJA’s historic dome, which got very hot in the late August climate.
“Our coach has been pushing us like crazy. We all feel really in shape and ready to go. We’re ready for five sets, throw it at us, we’re good,” Lozano-Lomeli said.
The teams played each other tight and put together long, competitive rallies in the rubber match. Verlage, Tijerina and Andrea Jasso put the Lady Bloodhounds up 8-5, until Gonzalez got back-to-back aces to put Pace back on top 12-9.
Tijerina tabbed consecutive kills, one off the block and one down the line, to tie the match at 12. Torres and Andie Lozano-Lomeli came up big in the final rallies to tack on three straight points and capture the title.
“We fell short last weekend in the (Brownsville ISD) tournament, so they really wanted to win this one. I just told the girls to keep playing hard. They wanted it more,” Venegas said.
Pace finished the two-day tournament 4-0 with victories over Pharr IDEA, a Villa and San Isidro. The Lady Bloodhounds went 3-1, defeating Brownsville IDEA Frontier, San Perlita and Edinburg IDEA Quest.
“What I told my kids is, ‘You didn’t get here because it was a fluke. You got here because you earned it, you worked for it and you have the skills to do something,’” Olguin-Trevino said. “If they can compete like this against a big, public high school, they can compete with the district teams.”
San Isidro finished third in the championship bracket with a sweep over Quest. In the consolation bracket, Brownsville IDEA Frontier defeated Port Isabel and Brownsville IDEA Riverview to clinch the bracket title. Port Isabel beat IDEA Pharr to take third in the consolation group.
All-tournament honorees were Pace’s Dyllan Lozano-Lomeli and Narvaez, SJA’s Verlage and Tijerina, San Isidro’s Mia Alvarado and Frontier’s Veronica Garza.
