Lady Rattlers win 3-2: San Marcos upsets district-leading New Braunfels

The Lady Rattlers sent a message to District 27-6A Tuesday evening.

San Marcos bested undefeated district opponent New Braunfels in a five-set (13-25, 28-26, 17-25, 26-24, 15-13) thriller inside the Snake Pit. The Lady Rattlers put together a full team effort to pull off the upset, led by sophomore outside hitter Brinkley Reeves who racked up 26 kills on the Lady Unicorns. 

“I think they went into this game not expecting to be able to hang with New Braunfels. New Braunfels has been on the up and up taking care of business,” head coach Megann Ollett said. “And I think they doubted (they could win until) they got in the second set and we’re after it and saw that they could compete, I think they believed finally. I think they go through a rollercoaster of whether or not they believe that they can be as good as the rest of us see them being able to be.”

New Braunfels started the match on fire, beating the Lady Rattlers 25-13 in the first set. The purple and white had to recuperate, and realized along the way that they had to throw caution to the wind a little bit to make plays against the Lady Unicorns.

“Honestly, I mean, the first set was pretty rough, they beat us by a good amount of points. But I think we just had the mindset of like — I don’t want to say we had nothing to lose — (but) we didn’t want to get swept. And that (was) of course a goal (for) everybody,” Reeves said. “But we were like, ‘okay, we’re gonna take this set, we’re gonna focus on this set and forget about the last set.’ And it was a really close game in the second set, but I think after we won the second set, it gave us that momentum saying like, ‘we can actually beat them,’ and then obviously it carried out throughout the whole game.”

The Lady Rattlers fought back to win the second set in extra points, 28-26. New Braunfels (22-17, 3-1) responded in the third set, winning 25-17 — seemingly regaining the same momentum they had in set one.

San Marcos (22-13, 3-1) wasn’t ready to give in.

The Lady Rattlers would come back once again to win set four in extra points, 26-24. The win brought the momentum back to the purple and white heading into the most important set of the game. In another back-and-forth affair, the Lady Unicorns and Lady Rattlers traded kills until the score was notched up at 13-13. San Marcos subsequently got a kill to push the match to match point at 14-13. 

That’s when the purple and white decided to take what they wanted.

The Lady Rattlers set up Reeves — who already had 25 kills — and the sophomore sent the ball to the floor through two New Braunfels blockers to silence the large Unicorn student section and crowd in attendance. 

The kill led to shock on one side of the court and elation on the other.

The win significantly muddied up the district’s playoff picture, with the Lady Rattlers inserting themselves into the race for the district’s top spot. The standings sit at a three-way tie for first, with San Marcos, Cibolo Steele and New Braunfels all having 3-1 records in district play. All three squads have also beat each other — making potential tiebreakers different than usual in the event they occur.

San Marcos turns its attention to East Central (17-16, 1-3) for the purple and white’s next matchup. The Lady Rattlers will face off with the Lady Hornets on Oct. 7 inside the Snake Pit at 7 p.m.

“I think (the win) gives them a hunger again. I think after they lost to Steele, they were just like, ‘okay, you know, (we’ll) just go through the motions,’ and I think now that they have this, there’s that fight in them and that ‘oh, wait, we can be something.’ So I’m excited,” Ollett said. “I do have my list (of things we still need to improve on) — (like) playing defense against a fast tempo, covering the seams and reading the ball outside of our body. I still feel like our serves need to be more aggressive and then even just being in (different) places to mix up some shots and remembering not to freak out.”