The Lady Leopards closed out a sweep of conference opponents with a sweep of Vernon College 25-14, 25-14, 25-18 at TC Gym in a match that also served to keep them sharp going into the Region V Tournament next weekend in Vernon.
“That was our intention,” said TC coach Mary Reese, whose team improved to 23-12 overall and 10-0 in conference. “This puts us in a good spot going into regionals. That’s open for anybody. It’s good that we can have it hanging over (opponent’s) heads that we’ve already beaten you twice.”
TC will travel to Brenham to take on Blinn in a non-conference match Monday night in an effort to keep the momentum going into its conference tournament. TC will play next Friday at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. and again at 3 p.m. Saturday for the right to reach the national tournament.
The Lady Leopards proved far too powerful for the freshmen-laden Lady Chaparrals. Vernon is 8-24 overall and 3-7 in conference and the Lady Chaps must wait to see if they will be among the four teams in the regional tournament that they are hosting.
In an amazing display of wealth distribution, four Lady Leopards - Sara Heger, Precious Sanders, Melissa Padgett and Heather Lisenbe - all led the way with eight kills apiece. Setter Cheyenne Craigen loaded most of the ammunition with 24 assists to go with an ace and two blocks.
“Our setters did a great job of moving it around for a better spread of contributions,” Reese said.
Heger and Elise Swearengin had a block party of their own with eight and five stuffs, respectively. Swearengin added six kills.
In the opening set, the Lady Chaps only managed back-to-back points once while the Lady Leopards strung together five straight twice. TC opened an 11-4 lead with kills from Lisenbe, Padgett, a kill and a block from Heger and an ace from Padgett. They continued to pull away to grab a 1-0 lead.
It was much the same in the middle set as the Lady Leopards got some separation by scoring nine of the final 12 points, feasting on errant Lady Chaps shots mixed in with kills by Padgett and Lisenbe. Just as she did in the opener, Heger closed out the game with a scoring block.
Vernon commanded a slight lead through much of the third set and was still up 14-13 before the Lady Leopards caught fire again to post 12 of the last 16 rally points.
Swearengin, Craigen, Sanders and Hillary King all got in on the spike run down the stretch with Lisenbe putting away a Kylie Presswood set to finish off the Lady Chaps and once again hoist the regular season conference plaque.
An elated Reese, who got in on a postgame dance routine, said, “This never gets old."
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