The Aubrey Lady Chaparrals varsity volleyball team earned their 29th win of the season, sweeping the Lake Dallas Lady Falcons on Sept. 18, three sets to none.
The Lady Chaps hit the hardwood running in the early portion of the match but needed a late surge to come from behind and close out their third district win of the season.
“We’ve been working on some things, like playing on the other side of the net and tempo passing, and we did a good job of that tonight,” Aubrey head volleyball coach Whitney Marriott said. “Seeing us implement what we've been working on in practice was awesome, but we weren’t as crisp and clean as we would have liked to be through the sets. We had a long week after traveling to Sunnyvale, which was a big game, but I was very pleased to come out with the win tonight.”
Aubery took the opening set in convincing fashion, outscoring Lake Dallas 2512.
The second set was a much closer contest, with the two squads trading points until the Lady Chaps were able to pull away midway through the period to win 25-17.
Despite being down two sets, Lake Dallas turned the tables on Aubrey in Set 3, building a 4-0 lead early in the period.
The two teams traded kills, with the Lady Falcons finding themselves up 13-8 midway through Set 3, but that’s where the Lady Chaps found their footing and rallied from behind to take the final set 25-21.
“We did a really good job of making the adjustments that we needed in Set 3 and digging ourselves out of that hole,” Marriott said.
Senior outside hitter Chloe Miller led Aubrey with 12 kills, followed by junior middle blocker Paisley Hopper, who had 11 kills, while Miller and sophomore libero Emma Conley led the defense, combining for 41 digs.
Marriott also highlighted setter duo junior Landry Hampton and sophomore Reese Martino, who combined for 35 assists.
“They came in with some ginormous shoes to fill,” she said. “Baylee [Hampton] holds almost every volleyball record here at Aubrey, but they’ve been confident and have done a really good job, and at times you wouldn’t know that we have different setters from last year. … Those two are hungry and really want to go be the best versions of themselves that they can be.”
Landry said the two have worked hard to replace her older sister, Baylee, who was an all-state setter.
“We’ve been working on being offensive in practice, and we used that in this match where we really tried to focus on pushing to corners,” she said.
Martino added that Baylee helped provide the perfect blueprint for the Lady Chaps’ new duo.
“We’ve been putting in a lot of hours in practice and trying to put what we’ve learned into games, and while we could have been a lot cleaner, overall, we’ve been playing really well and just need to keep the same energy going into our next match,” she said.
The Lady Chaps followed their win over Lake Dallas with a clean sweep over the Lady Bobcats of Krum on Tuesday.
Aubrey is scheduled to face Sanger at 4:30 p.m. Friday at Aubrey High School.
