Salado sweeps, gets revenge on Rogers in seeding showdown Posted On: Friday, Oct. 30 2009 04:14 AM By Alex Byington
Killeen Daily Herald

JARRELL – For Brennan Boydstun, revenge is thrice as nice.

Completing the rare trifecta, the Salado volleyball team swept District 25-2A rival Rogers for the third time this season with a 25-23, 25-23, 25-14 victory Thursday evening in their playoff seeding showdown at Jarrell High School.

"Last year they did it to us, so it felt great to get revenge on them the same exact same way they beat us a year ago," said Boydstun, who finished with a triple-double with a team-high 13 kills, 27 assists and 23 digs.

Except it wasn't exactly the same.

After both ended the season tied with an 11-1 district record, finishing the regular season as co-champions, Salado took Rogers to a decisive five games in last year's seeding game before Rogers pulled out a 22-25, 25-12, 25-21, 13-25, 15-10 victory to claim the top seed and a first round bye.

"It's been that extra little bit of motivation to push harder, to not give up," Salado coach Bree Holz-Gonzales said of last year's losses to Rogers.

This time, Salado was flat-out dominating against Rogers, never faltering with a perfect 9-0 record against their biggest district foe.

"I think a lot it is mental," said Rogers coach Stacy Rogers. "... I know it's mental for us when we play against Salado."

Trying to lock up its first-ever No. 1 seed after finishing as district tri-champions along with Rogers and Lago Vista, Saldado assured itself of at least repeating as the No. 2 seed when the Lady Vikings try and snap a two-match losing streak to Rogers when the two play tonight at 7.

Playing one another this season, while Salado has had Rogers' number, Rogers has won both matches against Lago Vista, who has in turn won both matches against Salado.

"For some reason, it's just been the same rotation during district so we hope that happens again," Boydstun said. "If not, then we're ready to play Lago and try and beat them too."

If Rogers takes care of business like they've done so far this season, Salado will win the top seed outright. But if Lago Vista pulls off the victory, they advance to play Salado on Saturday.

Back and forth most of the first game, both Lady Eagle squads were tied at 22-22 when back-to-back mental mistakes by Rogers gave Salado the a game-point situation at 24-22.

Following a point by Rogers, Boydstun had about enough, scoring the first of two game-clinching kills on an unorthodox push-tip, effectively catching the Rogers defense off-guard much of the game.

"It's just one of the tips I do all the time and they weren't picking it up, so I kept doing it and I was going to keep doing it until they stopped it,"

Things were going Salado's way in the second game as well before Rogers scored six straight points, including four consecutive kills by heavy-hitter Cayleigh Drake to give them a 13-11 lead, just their second of the game.

But after Holz-Gonzales called a time out to refocus her team, Boydstun scored on a kill from the back row to hault the spree and swing momentum right back toward Salado.

"That's kind of what turned it around," Holz-Gonzales said. "All you need is that one play – that one player to step up and make that one play and since volleyball is such a momentum game, it completely swing it back our way and we were able to come back."

And rally they did as Salado's talented junior class spread the scoring opportunities before Boydstun again clinched it on her fifth point of the game, coming on another tip. The third was much of the same as Salado cruised.

Aiding Boydstun in the victory Thursday was fellow juniors Camryn Bintz, who added 8 kills and 12 digs, Hadley Joiner, who was key on defense with a team-high 25 digs and seven kills, libero Brittney Frazier with 10 digs and six kills from Jenna Sebek, who is playing without an ACL in her right knee. Sophomore Carling Urben added seven kills along the front line.

Contact Alex Byington at alexb@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7566.