Suffering a defeat at the hands of AC Reynolds previously in the regular season, the West Henderson volleyball team came back with a vengeance on Oct. 18, and won the Conference Tournament against the Rockets in a three set game. The Falcons swept the match in three sets (25-15, 25-16, 25-12). During the match the gym was filled with excitement, with the student section cheering loudly to support their home team. The Falcons were determined to win the conference championship all season long through their preparation.
“We have worked so hard through the morning practices at 6 a.m. Everything we have done throughout the year was for this right here,” sophomore Daija Jackson said. “I could not be more proud of my team right now.”
Head Coach Tiffany Lowrance believes it was their early preparation that got them to the level that they are playing at now.
“We have been pushing our metal, penetrating, and just working our butts off,” Lowrance said. “We are very disciplined right now, we say it every day, and they’re pushing themselves on what we have to work on to be a great team. That’s what they’ve been doing every day in practice. We are playing great volleyball right now, we just have to know that we can keep at it.”
Post-match All Tournament Player awards were given to senior Casey Brown and sophomore Malia Moore. Moore had 12 assists, one ace, one and a half blocks and eight digs. Brown scored 12 kills, one ace and three blocks. Brown led the team in kills for the game. Jackson had two kills throughout the game and five blocks.
A strong defense was led by Jackson, who played a pivotal role in keeping the Rockets from scoring on Falcons. The Rockets were struggling to return West’s serves until late into the first set.
“We definitely did well on pressing and blocking and finding open holes on the other side of the court so we could score points,” Jackson said. “Right from the beginning I knew that we had to come out here and we weren’t going to place second like we did last year, I knew we needed to stay hype no matter what we did or what mistakes we made. We had to keep pushing hard and get this conference championship.”
After winning the conference championship, the Falcons will be preparing to play at the state level.
By: Jose Guadalupe Tinoco Hernandez, Staff Writer
