At this year’s version of the tournament, Temple stuck to the same script during Friday’s pool play, topping Burnet, Lorena and Amarillo Palo Duro to finish first in Pool 1. The Tem-Cats open bracket play against Pool 4 runner-up Pflugerville at 9:30 a.m. today at Wildcat Gym.
Meanwhile, Belton lost matches to Pflugerville, Crowley and Killeen to place fourth in Pool 4, won by Crowley. Belton will play San Antonio Holmes in a Bronze Bracket bracket semifinal at 9:30 a.m. today at Wildcat Gym’s Court 3.
The top two teams in each pool enter the Gold Bracket of the tournament, which concludes with the championship match at 3:30 p.m. The third-place game is at the same time today, with the consolation match also at 3:30 p.m. in Temple’s old gym.
Temple coach Susie Hughlett hopes her Tem-Cats (13-6) are there for one of the 3:30 p.m. matches after last year’s disappointing showing after a first-place pool finish.
“It would be nice to finish near the top,” Hughlett said. “I always keep thinking, ‘Guys, we have to finish better. It’s our own tournament.’ But there are some really good teams here.”
The Tem-Cats are in position thanks to their Friday sweep. After dispatching Burnet for the second time this year, 25-8, 25-22, they ran into a bump against Class 3A Lorena.
After the Tem-Cats won the first game 25-16, the Lady Leopards roared back from an early hole to tie the second game at 20. That’s when Hughlett did something she’s tried to avoid all year - call a timeout.
“I’m trying to get them more mentally tough so we don’t have to rely on that ‘Please bail me out,’” Hughlett said. “That way they can start realizing they can work themselves out of messes. They’ve done it more than not this year, so it’s helping.”
The timeout didn’t work as Lorena rolled off five straight points for the win. Temple, however, rolled in Game 3 for a 25-22 win. In the third game, Temple topped Palo Duro 25-19, 25-7. In that final game, Temple had no service errors, something that made Hughlett very happy. Jordan Pickett had seven of the Tem-Cats’ 16 aces in the match.
“We had a couple spurts of I guess you could call them mental lapses,” Hughlett said. “But I was overall happy with how we played - pretty consistently well.”
Trenette Smith finished the three matches with 33 kills and Pickett added 28. Katy Houchin had 48 assists.
Pflugerville’s Lady Panthers handed the Tem-Cats their second Saturday loss last year, ending their tournament run.
“They’ll be ready to play at 9:30,” Hughlett said. “I hope we make a good, strong showing, but we will be able to do what we need to do.”
Belton won’t be joining them in the gold bracket after suffering three consecutive losses, capped by a 29-31, 25-19, 25-22 defeat against Killeen.
In the first match, Belton lost a hard-fought match to Pflugerville 22-25, 27-25, 25-19. The Lady Tigers jumped out early, winning the first game and leading most of the second before falling.
“We played really well throughout the match, but some stupid errors cost us in the second game,” Lady Tigers coach Allison Taylor said.
Belton trailed for most of the third game, then rallied to make it close before eventually falling.
Katelyn Rosebrock led the Lady Tigers with 10 kills and 15 digs, KC Warehime had 14 assists and eight digs, Candice Roberts had 12 digs and Grace Weaver recorded six blocks.
After nearly defeating Pflugerville, the Lady Tigers fell to Crowley 25-13, 25-15 in a match that lasted 33 minutes.
Tied at 8 in the first game, the Lady Eagles scored 17 of the next 22 points. Belton rallied in the second game to close within 16-13 before Crowley scored nine of the next 11 points for the sweep.
“They just kept catching us out of position on their serves,” Taylor said.
Rosebrock had four kills, Roberts had eight digs and Warehime and Myca San Miguel had six assists apiece.
