Friday, Aug. 22, 2008

Lady Panthers Beating Tough Foes

CHHS Volleyball

By John English

Contributing Writer

The Colleyville Heritage volleyball team had a decent showing at last week’s Duncanville Tournament of Champions, and the road will not get that much easier this week as it heads down to Granbury for their tournament.

Coach Libby Pacheco said she expected her team to have some struggles in the Duncanville competition, but said it is all part of her plan to make the Lady Panthers stronger for district competition.

"I believe we finished second in the Silver bracket at Duncanville," Pacheco said. "It was definitely a great tournament for us. We started off against Westlake, which we lost, but that is always such a hard game. By the end of the tournament the girls learned so much about each other. There was massive improvement."

Colleyville Heritage defeated McKinney Boyd 3-0 on Tuesday.

The Lady Panthers finished 3-3 in the Duncanville tournament with wins over Midlothian, Northwest and Mansfield Summit and Pacheco said she felt her team looked good in a couple of areas.

"We knew that Amanda Anderson was going to be an amazing player for us, and she had a really good tournament," Pacheco said. "By the end of the tournament, our blocking ended up being one of our big strengths as well."

Pacheco said the team still needs to work on consistency with serve/receive, but said that defensively, her team played surprisingly well.

"That is so good to see," Pacheco said.

Colleyville’s victory over district rival Northwest is something Pacheco hopes will bode well for her team when district rolls around, but she said she reminded her players not to get too excited about the win.

"I try to tell the girls to not think of it as a district game yet," Pacheco said. "There is a lot of season left to be played between now and district, but I think mentally, since we’re such a young team, I think it was a big boost for us."

Pacheco said she is extremely optimistic about this weekend’s tournament in Granbury.

"I think, especially after our performance in the last tournament, I highly expect us to do really well there," Pacheco said. "I think we will get to see some players that maybe did not get a whole lot of playing time this last week. Duncanville is definitely the biggest, toughest tournament we compete in, and I think we performed well, so we should have a really good shot at Granbury."