The Belton Journal
Turning momentum is one of the hardest things to do in sports, any sport. Coaches preach it but doing it on the court, diamond or field, is not easy. If it was, there would be more coaches than leaves on a tree.
Lake Belton’s volleyball team was up 2-0 after two hard-fought sets. They dropped the next two sets and were down 4-1 in the final set. Magnolia was 24-14 on the season for a reason.
A dig by Danica Bingham and a block by Trinaty Pearson turned the final set around. Pearson followed with another block later in the match to tie things up at 4-4.
Dylan Presley served three straight points to help the Lady Broncos go up 5-4 with a block by Gabby Jones. The Lady Broncos would go up 12-6 in the best to 15 final set and roll to a bi-district championship.
In the first set, the Lady Broncos were down 3-1 and 9-6 at one point. Jones added several of her 15 spikes in that first set. Kaleice Caine had a tip to tie the match at 4-4. Bigham added a tip to close the gap to 9-7 early in the match. Aneia Stallings had a spike to close the game to 16-11. Stallings and Kaitlyn Hutchins had back-to-back blocks to help close the West lead to 17-16 and force a Magnolia timeout.
Lake Belton tied the game at 19-19 with Hanna Ward serving a point for Lake while taking their first lead of the game at 20-21. Jones’s spike wrapped up the hard-fought first set at 25-23 Lake Belton.
Lake Belton took an early lead in the first set off two Jones spikes to make the score 5-3. Stallings added a spike to make it 10-8. Magnolia would tie the game 11-11 but a couple of served points by Pressley helped Lake Belton take a commanding 15-11 lead in the match. Lake Belton would eventually roll to a 21-12 lead. Presley Patrick added a couple good serves as Lake Belton rolled to a 25-17 win. At this point in the match everything was going Lake Belton’s way.
In the third set Lake got down early and Magnolia rolled to a 11-4 lead. The Lady Broncos would close the gap to a 17-15 deficit but could not get any closer falling to 25-20 in the third set. The fourth set wasn’t close, with Magnolia taking control of the match winning 25-15.
This is where the true character of the Lake Belton team showed.
At this point the match had turned against the Lady Broncos and all the momentum was in West’s favor. It was an impressive gut check performance in the fifth and final set. The Lady Broncos came back in the fifth and final set to take the win and advance in the playoffs.
Lake Belton 36-8 faces Georgetown 27-18 in the next round. The winner will face either Brenham or East View in the Area Championship.
