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Queens of the jungle: Lady Lions claim another tournament title
BY Matt Welch, mwelch@starlocalnews.com
The Prestonwood Christian Academy volleyball team wrapped up its tournament schedule in the same fashion in which it began: with a championship.
As a complement to the Garland ISD Tournament title hoisted on Aug. 18, the Lady Lions completed a six-match swarm of the TAPPS competition on hand Friday and Saturday for a championship at the POPapalooza Tournament, held at Prince of Peace.
"This is a really unique group of girls," said Becky O'Neal, Prestonwood head coach. "They play really well as a team, so they're very confident in their skills and teamwork when they go out on the court, but they're not cocky about it. They're more cautious about it because we have a long way to go."
The Lady Lions were actually tasked with rallying before closing out the Lady Bears (19-25, 25-20, 15-10).
"Just the knowledge that [Ursuline] is a district opponent plays with their psyche a bit," O'Neal said. "They're obviously a very strong team and we came out a bit gun-shy in the first set, and then just rallied back and refused to be defeated."
It meant overcoming Ursuline's size advantage on the block, an area the Lady Lions went a ways towards negating with the presence of freshman Alexa Lehman. The youngest player on the Lady Lions' roster, Lehman supplied the size up front for five solo blocks in the championship match.
"[Lehman] wasn't pulled up officially until two weeks ago," O'Neal said. "One thing Ursuline is is big and we're a bit smaller on the whole. Alexa is a bit taller so we put her on the block and she wasn't intimidated at all; she did everything we needed her to do."
Aided by 17 kills from senior Katie Staiger, Prestonwood overwhelmed Ursuline down the stretch. The Lady Lions established a similar presence in the five matches leading up to the finale, which included victories over Coram Deo Academy (25-10, 25-11), Trinity Christian-Cedar Hill (25-6, 25-9), Grapevine Faith Christian (25-9, 25-8), Christian Heritage (25-10, 25-11) and Trinity Christian-Lubbock (25-11, 25-12).
Staiger led Prestonwood with 54 kills for the tournament, while junior Haley Wolken chipped in 104 assists, 32 digs and 13 aces, junior Ashley Morgan posted 35 kills, 41 digs and six aces, and senior Brooke Gajdica chipped in 23 digs and nine aces.
"They have so much fun playing together," O'Neal said. "It feels like that one loss to Rockwall-Heath did us some good in teaching us that we need to play every point in every match. It was a good reminder."
That defeat against Heath in the finals of the Frisco Invitational is the lone setback on the Lady Lions' ledger (23-1 overall and 50-4 in sets) as the team gets their TAPPS I-5A slate fully underway.
In amassing 23 wins thus far, O'Neal credited her team's crunch-time defense in helping balance out the offensive punch provided by the likes of Staiger and Morgan. That scrappy formula already has Prestonwood out to a 1-0 start in district after a sweep of Argyle Liberty Christian (25-11, 25-10, 25-21) on Sept. 6.
The Lady Lions continued their winning ways Tuesday night against Bishop Dunne (25-10, 25-8, 25-6) and will host John Paul II at 6 p.m. today; all while keeping the eventual Sept. 25 clash against Bishop Lynch -- ranked No. 15 in the state according to LoneStarVolleyball.com -- in the back of its mind.
"You don't talk about them everyday, but you keep building toward that ultimate match," O'Neal said. "And at the same time, we don't want to lose sight of the other quality teams in our district."
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