Lopes Return from Texas Road Trip with Three Wins

The Lady Lopes ended their Texas road trips this weekend with a 3-1 record from the tournament held in Snyder, Texas.  The Lopes overcame the SouthWest Collegiate Institute for the Deaf (SWCID), Vernon College and Ranger College, to pick up three wins and had their only loss against the host school, Western Texas College.

In the match against SWCID, Coach Stephenson had only freshman play the entire match.

"We did this for a couple of reasons," explained Coach Stephenson.  "I wanted to see what our team has in each position moving forward and this was a good opportunity for them to see what they have to continue to work on as a college athlete."

The team then faced off against Vernon College, a team who had beat them the previous weekend.  The Lady Lopes returned the favor by beating the Lady Chaps in 4 sets.  Team fell to Vernon in the first set but came back and won by taking the next three sets.

"We had to step up our play and control the net. That didn't happen in the first set," said Coach Stephenson.

In the third match of the tournament, the Lopes took on Ranger College.  The Lady Lopes took control early in the match, giving them a two set lead before Ranger fought back to tie it up.  Lopes came back strong in the fifth set and at the turn they had a 8-2 lead.  The Ranger team fought hard to tie it back up at 9-9, but the Lopes tightened their defense to rally past Ranger 16-14.

Riding a three win high, the Lopes went into the final match of the weekend against host school Western Texas College.  Both teams came in to the match 3-0.  The Lady Lopes fought hard in the first two sets but they ran out of steam in set three, falling to Western Texas in three sets.  

Courtney Adams played very well and was named to the All-Tournament Team.

The Lady Lopes had a good showing in Texas, returning with a 4-4 record from the two tournaments.

Next on the team's schedule is the Seward Tournament on September 25-26, held in Liberal, Kansas.