But for Mary Reese and the Temple College Lady Leopards, that’s not good enough. Despite the success Temple has enjoyed, it still has yet to win a match at the National Junior College Athletic Association national tournament in three appearances.
The road to change that began this weekend at the Navarro Classic and continues Tuesday when Temple plays Navarro in its home opener.
“I know that we can win,” Reese said of the national tournament. “We should have won last year. We played Hillsborough (Fla.) and they really only had one kid. She was smart, but we could have beaten them. We could have beat Fort Smith too; that was just intimidation. Winning is obtainable at nationals.”
The Lady Leopards, who finished 22-15 last year, were outmatched in the opening match against Fort Smith (Ark.), falling 30-26, 30-13, 30-21, and then fought Hillsborough to a five-set loss, losing the final game 15-8.
The worst part about last season’s end may have been that Temple had dominated Hillsborough. The Lady Leopards won the first game easily 30-21 but found themselves in a tie-breaking fifth set after three straight sets that were decided by two points. And in the final game, Temple fell apart.
The stats were telling. Even though the Lady Leopards had fewer attack errors and a higher hitting percentage overall, they had five errors in the final game. Hillsborough had none. And in the end, five Lady Leopards finished the match with negative hitting percentages.
“I expected us to get to nationals. I did not expect us to not do so well at nationals,” Reese added. “A few players (freshmen) choked. But that’s normal for freshmen, especially for us because we don’t really get the kids that Blinn can get - the big, dynamic kids that go to club level nationals every year.”
Seven of those freshmen are back and give Temple the leadership and experience it needs to make a third straight trip to the national tournament and make some noise once there.
“A lot of the girls had never been in anything like that,” sophomore outside hitter Melissa Padgett said. “It was nerve-racking and a great experience. It’s something I am looking forward to going back to this year. I think with seven sophomores, we will be able to compete better than last year.”
Padgett was one of the players not intimidated by the national tournament. She had plenty of big game experience in high school with state power Jewett Leon. That experience showed last year when she had a season-high 22 kills against North Central, Temple’s top rival in Northern Texas Junior College Athletic Conference.
Padgett, Sara Heger and Heather Lisenbe will all be looked at to provide a solid, experienced attack line. Academy product Lisenbe had 121 kills and 37 total blocks in conference play last year as a middle blocker to earn first-team all-conference honors along with Shelly Gaas and Rebekah Melton, the conference player of the year.
“They were a big aspect of our team, but they aren’t here anymore,” Lisenbe said of Melton and Gaas. “So we have to get it done. I don’t feel like I have to change anything. I still have a job to do and I just have to get it done.”
Padgett will be on the outside, and Reese said that freshman Precious Sanders has the potential to be a more dominating player than Melton.
“She is tough, and she is dynamic,” Reese said. “But like (Melton) her freshman year, she has to learn. But she is probably more powerful as far as strength and swing power. And she’s coming from a program that’s been to state (Bellville).
“She still feels like she has to do it all and right now, she’s learning that here all the kids are good so she doesn’t have to do it all.”
That’s often the deciding factor in how well a player does at college - adjusting to the skill and speed of the game is critical.
“High school is a slower game,” Heger said. “There are always the teams that pick on the weaker girls. But up here, everybody is strong. Here you have to be more precise every time and more consistent.”
For the Lady Leopards, that’s not an issue. Since Temple doesn’t get the dominant club or foreign players or the 6-5 middle blockers, Reese makes sure that the players she has are more skilled.
“We are definitely shorter,” Padgett added. “But (Coach Reese) puts us through three-a-days, which are grueling. She demands a lot from us physically and mentally. The height and athletic ability those girls have compares nothing to the skill and mentally ability we have.
“So when it’s time to step up and we are up against a 6-1 girl, we don’t care because we have been doing agility drills and are jumping just as high as the 6-1 girls reach.”
With experience and preparation, the Lady Leopards know this is their best shot at winning at the national tournament. And Reese makes no bones about it. From the opening game, the focus is on winning with the purpose of getting a better seed at the tournament.
“I’m thinking about the long-term goal, which is nationals,” she said. “We have to go into that with only single-digit losses, or no losses at all so that we can get a better rank and play someone we are better matched with.
“I have great kids here. The kids coming back are beasts and they are hungry to prove they can do it.”
