San Marcos beats Bowie in district opener

San Marcos head coach Jared Te’o called a timeout and told all 15 of his players to close their eyes.

The Lady Rattlers were playing their first District 26-6A opponent in Austin Bowie on the road Tuesday night. It was quiet in the gym — Austin ISD limited the size of the crowd by not allowing any visiting spectators. The purple and white were down 2-1 in the match and while the team held a slim lead in the fourth set, the Lady Bulldogs were coming back.

Te’o told the players to visualize serving to specific parts of the court. Visualize making the correct defensive adjustments. Visualize winning the match.

“This is gonna sound really corny and cheesy but I’m a really big advocate of meditation and visualization. So I probably looked like a psychopath,” Te’o said. “It’s weird, it was weird. On the sidelines, everybody was like, ‘What are they doing?’ And it was quiet because there weren’t a lot of people there. So there was, you know, 15 girls sitting there in a timeout with their eyes closed, it probably looks bizarre.”

The brief meditation session helped, though. San Marcos stayed in front to claim the fourth frame and edged out Bowie in the fifth set to take the 3-2 (25-21, 23-25, 18-25, 25-21, 15-13) match win.

“I think they just try so hard and they want it so bad that they get lost in, like, what it takes to get wins,” Te’o said. “So I think I just made them relax a little bit and not worry so much about winning each point and just thinking of doing the job that I’ve asked them to do.”

The Lady Rattlers (3-3, 1-0 district) were coming off a 3-1 loss at Leander in which each set was decided by three points or less. The team typically comes out strong — winning the first set in four of this year’s six matches — but Te’o said the team tends to struggle to close out and execute his game plans as the frames wear on.

After winning the opening set against Bowie (2-3, 0-1) and then dropping the next two, the head coach feared San Marcos was repeating its mistakes.

“We lost the third set pretty bad and I was like, ‘Hey, this is kind of our story this season and we could rewrite it here.’ Every match, we lose a set pretty bad and then in the fourth set we kind of just give up mentally,” Te’o said. “A couple of players really kind of stepped up big, I think, and kind of put the team on their back and it brought everybody else along and I think that was part of it.”

One of those players was Layla Diaz. Te’o said the senior outside hitter dug out 10 balls in the final two sets to help propel the purple in white to claim the 25-21 and 15-13 wins and take the come-from-behind match victory, 3-2.

Diaz earned a double-double with 10 kills and 23 digs. Junior outside hitter Maggie Walsh led the team with 31 kills and three blocks. Senior libero Julia Antu added another 20 digs.

The Lady Rattlers are scheduled to visit Buda Hays (4-2, 1-0) on Friday at 6:30 p.m. Hays swept Del Valle 3-0 in its district opener on Tuesday. Te’o said he hopes San Marcos’ win over Bowie will help the players gain more trust in each other and the coaches.

“I think that was our first five-set match to play and it was our toughest opponent we played and we were able to win,” Te’o said. “So did we do everything right? No, but I think they were able to sustain a higher level for a longer period of time. So that’s really good news for us.”