Coming off their first district victory in almost four years to the day, the Brownwood Lady Lions were able to take a set from the Stephenville Honeybees Tuesday night at Warren Gym, but were unable to secure the win in a 25-17, 25-14, 22-25, 25-14 District 6-4A decision.
“We had to make a lot of adjustments during the entire match,” said Lady Lions first-year head coach Kristen Grimes. “It took us three sets to make the adjustments and figure it out, and then we capitalized in areas where we knew we could score points and go on a run, and we took advantage of that in the third set. The first set we stayed with them until about 16 points and then we just fell flat. The second set we dug ourselves a hole and never could get out of it, and same thing in the fourth set. But they showed a lot of fight and had a lot of back and forth rallies that just didn’t go our way.”
Pacing the attack for the Lady Lions were Aniah Hines with 11 kills, Demayha Hooker with nine, Hannah Deen with eight, Kaydence Chandler with six, and Jentry Coalson with three.
Icess Hall distributed 35 assists with Coalson and Hooker contributing one apiece, while Sara Stubblefield served a pair of aces and Lanie Johnson added one as well.
On the defensive end, Stubblefield and Johnson registered seven digs each followed by Grace Sparks with six, Deen with five, Chandler and Maddi Scott with four apiece, Hall and Hines with three each, Coalson with two and Hooker with one.
At the net, Chandler recorded six blocks along with two from Hooker and one apiece by Hall and Hines.
During Brownwood’s third-set victory, the Lady Lions fell in an early 8-5 hole, but scored the next three points with an ace by Johnson knotting the score at 8. The teams traded points until a kill by Hooker pushed Brownwood in front, 13-12. A kill from Deen extended the lead to 15-12, but Stephenville clawed back to with 16-15, where consecutive kills from Hines stretched the lead to 18-15. Leading 22-18 after a kill from Chandler, the Lady Lions saw Stephenville close the gap to 23-21, but a block by Chandler, and later a kill from Deen finished off the Brownwood triumph.
At the midway point of the District 6-4A schedule, Grimes assessed where the Lady Lions stand.
“I feel like we have improved a ton,” Grimes said. “We’re still a bit of a roller coaster with consistency, but we’re doing a lot of things really well. I’m super proud of how much they’ve grown and I’m excited for the second half because I think some of the matches we played the first half could go our way if we stay consistent and keep our all-out, nothing hits the floor, fight until the whistle mentality. If we do that, we could pull some matches away.”
Reflecting on Friday’s four-set win at Mineral Wells, the Lady Lions’ first district triumph since Oct. 19, 2021, Grimes said, “It’s always good to go into someone else’s gym and win, and for it to be our first district win, it was pretty exciting. I loved it for the seniors because they’ve been in the program for four years and haven’t won a district match. Everyone was a little emotional afterwards, and hopefully we can build off that. I thought we played really well tonight, we didn’t play with nerves and came straight at them. We just need some points to fall our way.”
The Lady Lions (15-15, 1-4) are back in action at 4:30 p.m. Friday as they host Graham to start the second half of league action.
