Pioneer efficient, effective in district-opening sweep of Vela

Deadly efficient offensively and in never-ending relentless pursuit on defense, Sharyland Pioneer made it look easy in its District 31-5A opener at home on Tuesday, sweeping a hungry Edinburg Vela team that is expected to be fighting for a playoff position at the end of the season, 25-13, 25-22, 25-15.

The performance was just another Pulitzer submission in the Pioneer series on “how to win on the volleyball court.” Using precise passing, refusing to let the ball touch the floor and showing a wide variety of offense, Diamondbacks’ head coach Laura Cavazos is already calling this team “special.”

“I think it all comes down to serve receive and passing,” said Cavazos, whose team improved to 13-2 overall. “I felt like today our passing defensively, we were able to get Hailey the ball in system most of the times and deliver. When we can deliver, we can open up our offense a little bit more and more spots are available to swing. The hitters when the green light was on and they knew they were going to put that ball down.

“We have several hitters who can do that and felt on but it’s a testament to our defense,” Cavazos said. “They all played so well in the back row and that was our goal coming off the Mission tournament was to be more efficient with our passing and transition.”

Defensively, at least on two occasions, Vela began to cheer for a point that instead turned into an improbable save and counterattack by Pioneer. On another occasion, the SaberCats started celebrating a point quickly stopped to look over their shoulders to make sure the point was officially over, and returned to enjoying the point.

Pioneer isn’t a team that’s just going to overpower its opponents, even though middles Scarlet Verjel, Itzel Hernandez and outsides Elle Hill and Izabella Cano showed some extra pop during a few attacks, especially during the third set. However, as the Diamondbacks showed on Tuesday, they will be in the right places at the right times, will not beat themselves up with unforced errors and will make the easy things look easy – and effortless.

Verjel paced the Pioneer offense with 12 kills, Cano and Hill added eight each and Hernandez tallied seven in a well-rounded performance.

“This was a really big game starting off our district season,” Verjel said. “I think we did a phenomenal job to win 3-0. There were some struggles here and there but we came back and won.

“When we see everyone hustling we just want it more – when they dive for a ball it makes the hitter just want to get a kill. We started off really strong and just knew it was going to be our game.”

Setter Hailey Botello dished out 28 assists to go with 11 digs and libero Florencia Curiel had 18 digs and three assists. Curiel was also a human highlight film, one time looking more like a shortstop diving fully extended on an attack that most certainly should’ve been a Vela point. Instead, Curiel’s dig led to just another routine rally and Pioneer picked up that point.

“I read it well and just put myself out and my teammates got a point out of it,” Curiel said. “I think we have to have the mentality of having the next play but I think we did a good job of not letting anything get to us. We made a few mistakes but we got back quick as a team.”