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The Rice Lady Raiders volleyball team faced the Schulenburg Lady Horns on Thursday, Sept. 10, at Schulenburg High School.
The Lady Raiders fell to the Lady Horns in three sets for their 17th loss of the season and their first district loss of the season.
The Lady Raiders fell in the first set with a final score of 2519 to start the match. In the second set the Lady Raiders scored 11 points in a 25-11 final score.
Then in the third set, the Lady Raiders scored eight points to end the match with a score of 25-8. After the loss Lady Raiders head volleyball coach Morgan Hunter said district play is meant to be tough.
“In district play, we are in super competitive volleyball. We know that every team we play is going to be talented, and everyone is trying to get into a playoff spot,” Hunter said. “We have to show up and play volleyball and compete, and I thought we did that for the first half of the game and then we fell apart at the end.”
Going from scoring 19 points to scoring eight points in the third set was a tough reality for the Lady Raiders to face. Hunter said her team needs to just keep believing in themselves because the second doubt creeps into the mind of an athlete it makes the season harder.
“I think the girls doubt themselves sometimes and don’t see the potential that they have,” Hunter said. “We just have to keep showing that we can play volleyball and keep that consistency throughout an entire match.”
Despite the loss to Schulenburg, Hunter said there were plenty of positives to take away from this match. One of those positives was how well the defense played throughout the match.
“We started the match off, defensively, very well. We have been working on blocking, timing and eye sequencing,” Hunter said. “We were able to slow down especially the outside hitters a little bit and that alone opens things up and changes things. When we were doing that it was giving us the opportunity to score points. We just did not do that the whole match.”
The Lady Raiders now look ahead to their next match against Smithville on Friday, Sept. 18, at Rice Consolidated High School.
