Lady Apaches lack of communication leads to loss

GONZALES — The Lady Apaches couldn’t get things going as they dropped their home opener against the Luling Lady Eagles, (25-8, 25-16, 25-21).

Gonzales head coach Bernice Voigt cited the lack of communication as the biggest problem for the Lady Apaches.

“We came out so flat, we never got it going again,” she said. “I don’t know, we couldn’t play.”

The first set had too many serve-receive problems for Gonzales to succeed. Luling were able to take advantage of the multiple free balls Gonzales launched their way.

“We gave [Luling] so many free balls tonight they should have just been putting them away on us,” Voigt said. “We gave them their points. We didn’t play.”

Gonzales doubled their score in the second set, with points through kills and tips coming in from Sheridan Tate, Hailey Riojas and Morgan Mason. Down 17-16, Luling took advantage of Gonzales’ lack of communication, scoring eight straight points to win the set 25-16.

The third set was Gonzales’ set as more players scored including Alex James up in the front row. But even though the Lady Apaches kept things close while they were down 21-20, Luling would score the next four out of five points off of Gonzales mistakes involving a bad serve, double hit violation, lift violation and a ball that hit the ground.

The Lady Apaches take on Smithville at home tonight. In order to get the win, Voigt believes the team needs “to talk, we need to learn to pass the ball and talk to each other and trust each other again.”

The game tonight is at home, with a scheduled start time of 5:30 p.m.