But the Lady Leopards didn't become the three-time Northern Texas Junior College Athletic Conference champions by sitting back and watching.
A combination of Cisco mistakes and Temple's in-your-face aggressiveness helped the Lady Leopards dominate the Lady Wranglers 25-14, 25-19, 25-23 in a conference match Thursday evening at TC Gym.
"We expected more of a fight from Cisco," TC coach Mary Reese said. "We played them earlier in the year and they were stronger then. Or maybe it's because we were a lot weaker, too. We were very fresh and out of the gate."
Temple (13-17 overall, 4-0 NTJCAC) won the earlier matchup in four sets. In the rematch, it made sure it wouldn't need the fourth set.
CoCo Cave, who had five kills and two blocks, was on fire with her serves, picking up five aces while playing only the first two games.
"She had the topspin (when she got here)," Reese said of Cave's serving. "But she didn't have the consistency or the placement down. (Wednesday) we had a really strong serving practice, and that came through for her."
Cave's topspin drop serve was wicked Thursday. Her first offering resulted in a mishit by Cisco and her second was a solid shot near the back line that just left the Cisco defense motionless. She'd add two more just like it later.
"I've been improving a lot," Cave said of her serving. "All through high school all I did was a jump serve, but this past summer in club ball my coach wouldn't let me. So I was adjusting to the standing serve and that wasn't going well. I decided when I got here I would just do it, and it's getting better and better."
Cave agreed with Reese that her biggest issue had been placement. In previous matches, she had the wicked drop serve but would have as many service winners as serves that went wide, long or in the net. She was perfect on 11 serves Thursday.
"I had to work a lot on placement," she said. "I told Coach at the beginning of the year, 'I just jump up and hit it; I don't know where or go for a particular spot.' She gave me some spots to hit to and I started to hit it there. Now I know when it's going to be a bad serve or not by the toss. I was happy with myself tonight."
Cave wasn't the only player dominating her position. Middle blocker Kelsey Marek led TC with six kills and six blocks and Belton product Tilatha Akins led the team with nine blocks.
The Lady Leopards' early dominance combined with Cico's errors allowed Reese to give her entire team significant playing time, explaining why Cave played just two games.
"They are enjoying each other right now," Reese said. "They are getting more and more confident in each other as well as themselves. And tonight was important, as well as (Tuesday's win at Ranger) in getting confidence in the non-starters so we can have a more balanced bench. Them having confidence in each other and the players who don't play a lot is important."
The new lineup made things interesting in the final set. Cisco took advantage and built a 10-2 lead. But Reese and the Lady Leopards didn't panic, sticking to their gameplan to slowly chip away at the lead.
"Some of my girls are afraid that if they make an error I'm going to yank them," Reese said. "So that's why I didn't. I want them to know they can work through it. There was no reason for us to panic; we were up two games. It was their decision on whether they were going to execute or not."
Reese's faith paid off as Temple tied the set at 17 on a kill by Akins and took its first lead of the set on a mishit by Cisco's Melanie Mercer.
Cicso quickly tied it again and built the lead to 23-21 but couldn't close out the game as Temple rallied off four straight points, with the match winner a block by Marek and Beth Calhoun.
"This is such a relief," Cave said of the perfect conference record. "I came into conference like, 'When are we going to start winning?' When we won against Cedar Valley - we should have killed them but we didn't - I think that's what got everybody's spirits up and we went on from there. Now whenever we make an error we just shake it off. Preseason, we'd make an error and the whole team would get down. Now we are doing a better job of shaking it off and going play by play."
The Lady Leopards will be at Panola in a non-conference match Saturday, then return to conference play next Tuesday when they host Vernon at 6 p.m.
