San Marcos swept at home by No. 13 Austin High, 3-0

A tie at the top of the district has left San Marcos a must-win matchup for Austin High and Lake Travis.

The Lady Cavaliers defeated the Lady Maroons at the start of the second district cycle, leaving both teams with one loss in league play. A loss to any other team before the end of the regular season could mean surrending the district title and a No. 1 seed in the playoffs.

It meant that Austin wasn’t leaving anything to chance when it faced off with the Lady Rattlers inside the Snake Pit on Friday. San Marcos took the Lady Maroons to five sets in the teams’ first meeting on Sept. 21, but suffered a 3-0 (18-25, 18-25, 21-25) sweep this time around.

“I know coaches say this all the time, but credit to Austin High,” Te’o said. “They played phenomenal, they passed well, which, sometimes can be a weakness for them. Their setters played great and everybody went off and they have all the weapons.”

Te’o thought San Marcos (30-10, 6-5 district) did a solid job of serving Austin (34-6, 10-1). The hosts regularly got the visitors out of system, which was a major part of their game plan.

But it normally didn’t matter. The Lady Maroons were still able to set their pins 10 feet off the net for countless cross-court shots that the Lady Rattlers didn’t have many answers for.

“They came in really focused and I mean, when one of them goes off, two maybe — but when all five of their hitters go off? It's hard to beat them,” Te’o said. “In that situation, like, ‘OK, well what do we do?’ And they've got a lot of kids that are going to go play in college, (NCAA Division I), high level. So they played like it and their coaches were really prepared for what we were going to throw at them.”

Senior outside hitters Maggie Walsh and Joselyn Roberson both posted double-doubles, Walsh with 14 kills and 13 digs and Roberson with 10 kills and 11 digs. Junior setter Ruby Gordon led the team with 16 assists, followed by freshman Grace Pactanac with 13 dimes. Junior libero Callissa Castro added another 10 digs.

The purple and white will look to bounce back next week, but it’ll be against the other top team in the district in Lake Travis (35-10, 10-1) on the road Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

Te’o said it’ll take a much better performance to defeat the Lady Cavaliers than what San Marcos showed on Friday.

"Lake Travis is super disciplined, they do everything well, they've got a great culture and then, in my opinion, the best coach in the district,” Te’o said. “We've said this like all season, we have to follow a scout. And it's hard because we don't have the personnel size-wise to take a lot of space away. So it makes our girls kind of go back to their old habits of going to certain spots. But we've got to find a way to like, ‘This is where I want you to stand, this is what we've got to do,’ and try to follow the game plan. We gotta serve like we did tonight and then hopefully have a shot. But Lake Travis is, you know, they are what they are.”