Lady Mustangs play spoiler to Karnes City

With the new UIL rules taking effect this season, the visiting Karnes City Lady Badgers still had something to play for as they took on the home Nixon-Smiley Lady Mustangs. The Lady Mustangs (3-7) needed five sets to do it, but by the end of the night, they may have spoiled the playoff hopes of Karnes City (3-7), (25-21, 15-25, 25-12, 23-25, 15-7).

“To knock a team out of maybe going to the playoffs is huge,” Mustangs’ coach Kim Payne admitted. “I told them, ‘you have nothing to lose, spoil somebody’s fun,’ and so we did that.”

The Lady Mustangs started the first set off with a kill by Savannah Martinez. Karnes City answered back after each Nixon-Smiley point, trading off points from kills and service errors until the score became 7-6 in favor of the home Lady Mustangs.

After a serve by the Lady Badgers hit the net and bounced back, giving Nixon-Smiley an 8-6 lead, the Lady Mustangs went on a 7-0 run, scoring on three aces by senior Alena Alvarez and kills by Martinez and Miranda Carrillo.

Karnes City answered back with a quick four-point run to cut the lead to 14-10. However, Nixon-Smiley didn’t let up, scoring four of the next five points, and increasing their lead to 18-11. After trading points during the next few services, the score went to 21-14 before Karnes City began to fight back and come within a few points away from tying the game up.

The Lady Badgers took advantage of many mistakes by Nixon-Smiley, including attacks that would go out of bounds, balls that would fall in between players and attacks that would hit the net and fall back into their side of the court. After a quick run, the Lady Mustangs lead dwindled down to 22-20 before kills by Carrillo and Whitley Gonzales gave them the 24-20 lead. Karnes City scored on a service error but would then commit violation to give the Lady Mustangs the 25-21 win.

The second set was one to forget for the Lady Mustangs. After going down 5-1 to Karnes City, the Lady Mustangs came back to tie the game up, scoring on Lady Badger mistakes and an ace by sophomore Tyhana Mejias. Both teams would go back and forth until the score was locked up at 10 apiece.

Karnes City began their 8-1 run, scoring mainly on Lady Mustang mistakes. With the score at 18-11, Brooke Hester knocked in a kill to give Nixon-Smiley the service. Nixon-Smiley would score again before giving up another run by the Lady Badgers.

Karnes City went on to win the set 25-15, scoring on a kill, an ace and an attack error by the Lady Mustangs.

Despite the bad second set, Nixon-Smiley rallied back and took over in the third.

An attack error by the Lady Badgers gave Nixon-Smiley the quick 1-0 lead. The Lady Mustangs would then score on a block by Martinez and an ace by Carrillo to take the 3-0 lead. Karnes City would answer back to tie the game at five before Nixon-Smiley went on an 12-1 run to give the home team a 17-6 lead. The run was highlighted by big kills from Megan Guerra, Carrillo and Martinez.

Karnes City answered back with a few scores, but Nixon-Smiley blew the door open, scoring six of the last eight points to give the Lady Mustangs the 25-12 win on a Martinez kill.

“The second game was horrible, but we pulled it back and played as a team again,” Payne said.

In the fourth set, despite a lead by the Lady Mustangs, the Lady Badgers took advantage of missed Nixon-Smiley opportunities to put the game away. With the score at 20-14 in favor of the Lady Mustangs, Karnes City went on a 7-2 run to tie the game up at 22.

After Karnes City took the 23-22 lead on a tip-over kill, Payne would call a timeout to settle the Lady Mustangs. The timeout would prove to be ineffective as Karnes City scored again on a failed attack attempt by Nixon-Smiley. Martinez would then register a kill to make the game at 24-23. Karnes City finished off the Lady Mustangs with an attack that forced a Nixon-Smiley player to save it on a dive. After the ball was hit twice, there was some miscommunication with two Lady Mustangs, resulting in the ball falling on the floor and a 25-23 win for the visitors.

The final set of the match proved to be one dominated by Martinez and the Lady Mustangs. Nixon-Smiley started the set with a quick 5-2 lead before a timeout was called by Karnes City. The next three points were scored on kills by Martinez, giving them an 8-2 lead. After the Lady Mustangs put up two more for a 10-2 lead, Karnes City finally scored some points, going on a small 3-0 run to cut the lead to 10-5.

Both teams fought back and forth for points, with the Lady Mustangs scoring two straight and Karnes City answering back with two of their own to make it 12-7. However, Martinez scored the final three points on a kill and two aces to give the home team the 15-7 win and the five-set match winner.

“We finally put it together,” Payne said. “We played well Friday night against Stockdale and lost in five. We came off of that with some momentum.”

Payne also mentioned how the effort came from “the whole team,” with kills coming from more than just Martinez, who registered 20 the night.

 Carrillo finished behind Martinez for kills with 12. Defensively, Aliyah Moore was the blocks leader with three solo and two assisted blocks. Martinez finished the night with two solo and one assisted while Hester and Carrillo both finished with a solo and assisted block each.

The Lady Mustangs are now 3-7, tied with Karnes City for fifth place and with two games remaining in the season. Stockdale has five wins for the season with one game left. Stockdale will clinch a playoff spot with either a win Oct. 29 against Karnes City or a loss by both Nixon-Smiley and Karnes-City as they take on Hallettsville (7-3) and Poth (9-1) respectively.

The Lady Mustangs travel to Hallettsville Saturday in a game that will take place at 11 a.m.