Pioneer in midseason form on Opening Day

Sharyland Pioneer looked like they were in midseason form Monday after sweeping both Laredo United South and Corpus Christi Veterans at Pioneer High School.

In reality, however, if was Opening Day for the Diamondbacks

Sharyland Pioneer’s Izabella Cano goes up for a block during the Diamondbacks’ match against Corpus Christi Veterans on Monday, Aug., 12, 2024 at Sharyland Pioneer (Delcia Lopez / dlopez@themonitor.com)

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise when playing against a Laura Cavazos coached team. But Monday’s match seemed a little different. Pressure serving kept Vets on their heels and unable to get the ball to their 6-foot-1 middle Nya White, who delivered some blistering kills, but not nearly as many as the Eagles wanted- and certainly needed.

“We want to be aggressive on the serving line and keep teams off balance,” Cavazos said. “When you play against powerful hitters like that you have to ,have to be aggressive and know where she’s at slowly. We want the blockers to be able to slow the ball down. We’re not asking for  big block every time.”

Instead they got a big play all day as they swept by Vets and Laredo United South.

The Pioneer defense tallied four players with 9 or more digs led by Danica Gonzalez with 12, Izabella Cano had 11 digs and saved one missile were the attack seemed to remove her head – but her quickness got her hands in front of her face and she popped the ball up and turned it into a Pioneer kill. New setter Hailey Botello had 11 digs and 18 assists and standout libero Florencia Curiel registered nine digs.

“Flo looked like a senior out there commanding the back court and I thought we were ready to play.” Cavazos said. “I think we were still working on things throughout the game that we had talked about post scrimmage, they just did a great job of executing.

The most impressive thing about the defense was that it almost always seemed to be in the right place, rarely having to make point-saving fully stretched out dives, even though they executed a perfect. This kept the offensive transition in rhythm for Gonzalez’s 12 kills and Scarlet Verjal’s 10 kills.

The Diamondbacks finished the three sets with 11 aces as well, four from Cano and three from Gonzalez They are both sophomores. The team that looked like they’ve been playing together for four or more years, has just tree seniors.

During the first eight Pioneer points, seven different Diamondbacks made the crucial dig, pass or kill.

“I’ve known this since the start that we are a complete team. We’ve got hitters in the front row and Hailey can get it to them. We’ve got good defense and everybody stepped it up and in the front row they were ready to swing.

“Overall, we were consistent and getting into that groove. But we’ll work on being a little more consistent too.”