Edinburg North stuns McAllen Memorial in area round

EDINBURG — In many of Edinburg North’s 30-plus victories this season, there came a point when the Lady Cougars knew they were in control. That was their cue to turn up the pressure and not relinquish it.

On Saturday, during their Class 5A area playoff match against McAllen Memorial, that moment came midway through the third game after trailing by three points. With two games already on their side of the ledger, the Lady Cougars responded with five straight points. That took away whatever confidence the Lady Mustangs had built, and gave the Lady Cougars all the momentum they needed to close out a stunning 25-21, 25-22, 26-24 victory over Memorial on Edinburg North’s home floor.

“You could tell by looking at them, they didn’t know what to do,” said Jessica Martinez, Edinburg North’s senior middle blocker/outside hitter. “We call that ‘turn the knife.’ And that’s what we did point after point.”

Edinburg North (32-6) won for the 18th-straight time and claimed their first-ever area championship. The Lady Cougars will face Laredo Alexander in a Region IV-5A quarterfinal at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Roma. Memorial (32-5) fell after claiming a co-District 30-5A championship with Sharyland.

The Lady Mustangs came out strong, leading 5-1, in the first game. But, several critical service errors enabled Edinburg North to whittle away at the Lady Mustangs’ lead and get back in. Memorial tallied eight service errors and four came in the first game.

“In game like this, where it’s going to be close, you can’t afford to give away two or three points, much less five or six,” Memorial coach Lorena Lopez said. “Both teams played very well. But in games like this, the team that comes out on top is the team that fights for those last two or three points, and that’s what Edinburg North did better than we did.”

The Lady Cougars trailed late in each game. Edinburg North sealed the first game with a 10-5 run. Edinburg North stormed out to an 8-1 lead in the second game. The Lady Mustangs fought back and led 22-18, but Edinburg North scored the final seven points of the game to win it. Six of those points came on Juliannah Lopez’s serve. She had two aces in that sequence.

Memorial led 20-17 in the third game. The Lady Cougars pulled to within 22-21 on Lopez’ serve. Edinburg North fought off one game point when Memorial led 24-23. Vanessa Salazar came up with a dig off a rocket shot from the Lady Mustangs’ Nina Islas. The ball came off Salazar’s hands and found an open spot on the Lady Mustangs side of the net to tie it up at 24. The Lady Cougars scored the next two points to win the match.

In addition to finishing each game strong, the Lady Cougars covered the floor well. Salazar had 57 digs from the Lady Mustangs’ free-swinging, hard-hitting team. Edelicia Garcia had 10 digs.

“We frustrated them with our defense,” Edinburg North coach Adrian Cavazos said. “We kept putting the pressure on them offensively. As the match went on, we got our confidence.”

Martinez and Aleena Cubriel led by Lady Cougars with nine kills apiece. Allison Brandt had seven kills. Lopez had 13 assists and Danielle Trevino nine assists for the Lady Cougars.

“Everyone did a great job and we did what we were supposed to do,” Salazar said. “We really wanted to win this game. Once we got our confidence up, we knew we couldn’t let it go.”

Memorial was led by Chelsea Lyons’ 10 kills, 16 assists and four aces. Islas had 14 digs. Lindsey Richards had seven kills, 14 digs and two aces.

David Hinojosa covers high school volleyball for Valley Freedom Newspapers. He can be reached at dhinojosa@themonitor.com or at (956) 683-4442.