Lady Rattlers fall in heartbreaker to district foe Lady Chaparrals

No. 25 San Marcos’ Friday night match was a roller-coaster.

From student sections full of each team’s JV and freshman rosters chanting back and forth, parents and fans airing their grievances to referees and of course, five competitive sets of district 26-6A volleyball.

The Lady Rattlers and Chaps traded sets throughout the night, but Austin Westlake ultimately prevailed, 3-2 (19-25, 25-23, 22-25, 25-18, 13-15).

.@SanMarcosHSVB Head Coach Jared Te’o (@CoachTeoVB) talks tonight’s match against Austin Westlake.

Part 1:@smdrsports pic.twitter.com/MKM4mJldYb

— Jude McClaren (@judemcclaren) October 2, 2021

The purple and white kept themselves in the game because of a stellar fourth set. Junior Ruby Gordon was setting up her outside hitters, senior Emery Jones was getting blocks and kills in the middle, and senior Calissa Castro led the charge defensively. Down 2-1, San Marcos played their best set of the night and looked in rhythm.

The fifth set was competitive, but ultimately got away from San Marcos (28-8, 4-3 district).

“We’ve gotta find a way to finish in the fifth set. We’ve lost every fifth set this year and last year was the opposite. We played five fifth sets and won all of them,” head coach Jared Te’o said. “So I don’t know what it is right now, but we're just not able to get over the hump. We tried a different thing, a couple different things. But I'm proud of the way we fought in the fifth set after being down 12-6, but we've got to find a way to finish.”

The good news for the Lady Rattlers is their problems are fixable, but it starts with themselves. Te’o mentioned that he and the coaching staff are still looking for different ways to push his players that will translate onto the floor. They’ve tried different attitudes from positive to more hard-nosed, but ultimately Te’o believes his team is still adjusting to being ranked and having the expectation of winning.

It’s a mental hurdle that Te’o and his staff will look to remedy at the halfway point of district play before the juggernauts of Austin High, Lake Travis, and Westlake (20-17, 5-2) come to the Snake Pit in just about two weeks time. 

“We cross over with the Round Rock district and then the San Antonio and New Braunfels area in the second round if we make it. So we just want to get into the playoffs,” Te’o said. “Being completely honest, if you're not first in our district, you're going to kind of be screwed in (the) playoffs because the second, third or fourth from the other districts are really, really good. So two through four really doesn't matter. But we've got to win the matches we're supposed to win and you know, losing to Lake Travis and Austin, maybe we weren't supposed to win those, but this is a match we were supposed to win and we didn't.”

Despite the loss, the purple and white had some impressive performances. Senior Maggie Walsh totaled 27 kills and eight digs, senior Joselyn Roberson accounted for 16 kills and six digs, freshman Brinkley Reeves compiled seven kills and five digs and Gordon passed for 30 assists.

The Lady Rattlers will continue their road trip next Tuesday 30 minutes up I-35 in their first rematch of district competition against Austin Bowie (10-19, 1-5). San Marcos swept Bowie 3-0 in their first meeting, which was both clubs’ district opener.