However, the latest versions of both squads got really acquainted with each other in Tuesday night’s season opener for both teams.
This time, the Lady Bearcats, who were eliminated in three games by Rogers last year after winning District 13-2A, were able to exact some measure of revenge on the Lady Eagles by recapturing the momentum to come away with a 27-25, 25-14, 16-25, 17-25, 15-8 victory in a draining 1-hour, 40-minute match at Bearcat Gym.
“We really pulled it out and got focused in the fifth game,” first-year Moody coach Amanda Martin said. “We started getting our serves over. The last thing I told them in that fifth game was, ‘This is when you learn whether you can come back and take a match.’”
After seeing the tide of momentum ebb in the third and fourth games and trailing 8-6 in the decisive fifth, the Lady Bearcats went on a tear of 10 straight points to wrest the match from Rogers.
Moody broke serve on a wayward Lady Eagle attack. Then the Lady Bearcats’ two returning starters, Jackie Gates and Katy Lafitte, came up big. Gates served out the final nine points helped by a couple of Lafitte kills and another block.
Although it was a loss for the Lady Eagles, there was much to build on for a team that plays a pair of freshmen and is looking at three different setters.
“We got back into it,” said Rogers coach Pam Lomas, whose team went three rounds deep in the playoffs last year and was No. 14 in the final state poll. “We’re just working on playing together as a team.”
The Lady Eagles battled back from early deficits in the opening game. Moody led 24-20 before Rogers rallied to force extra points.
Dana Schaffner put away a Kelsey Hudson set. With Hudson serving, Brittany Luna’s kill tied it at 24. Gates and Schaffner traded kills before Lafitte put one down and then blocked a Schaffner attack to end it.
With freshman Casey Beth Fletcher serving, Moody continued to roll in the second game and jumped to an 11-1 lead. The Lady Eagles cut the lead to 4, but couldn’t capitalize.
“We did well in the first two games,” said Martin, a Gatesville native who took over after a couple of years at Temple’s Travis Middle School. “In the third game we fell asleep.”
Rogers rolled out to a 19-6 lead behind six Schaffner kills and easily pulled to victory in the third. In the fourth, the Lady Eagles broke open a 14-14 game by reeling off nine of 10 points with kills from Cayleigh Drake and Nicholyn Carter-Maddux sparking the rally.
ntwaits@temple-telegram.com
