Lady Pirates volleyball sweeps West Oso in home opener

ROCKPORT — The Rockport-Fulton High School volleyball team experienced a little bit of a hiccup in its sweep of Corpus Christi West Oso on Aug. 18. 

The Lady Pirates won the first two sets, but in the third set, the Bears jumped out to a 4-0 lead, forcing coach Jessica Clark to call a timeout. 

The move seemed to regroup Rockport-Fulton as it rallied to tie the set later and then went onto sweep West Oso 25-13, 25-13, 25-17 in the Lady Pirates’ home opener.

The non-district victory comes after Rockport-Fulton finished fourth in the Silver Bracket of the Corpus Christi ISD Spikefest tournament where the Pirates finished 3-3 and took fourth in the bracket.

“I would say our talking and we have been doing more of the setter-hitter connection at practice,” said Allie Garcia, who finished the match with six kills, five aces, five digs and two blocks. “Our passes are always there but I think it was more like the middle needed connection … my three setters, they are all pretty new and all of us hitting together. We worked with that at practice with coach Clark. I think communication is key.”

Senior Holly Baergen led the Lady Pirates with 15 kills during the match. Ellie Leftwich added five kills, three aces and a block and Elizabeth Isbell also added an ace. Kenna Nguyen led the defensive effort with eight digs as Baergen added six. 

Elizabeth Isbell recorded 15 assists with Julia Lechler six and Nguyen five, and Lechler also added a block. 

Clark said the team is still working on its consistency through the early portion of the season. 

“We’ve got great setters, we’ve got great hitters, we’ve got great passers, we just need to make sure at just being more consistent and we are still working on that setter-hitter connection. We are getting there,” Clark said. “When we get that down it’s all going to really start sparking. We are going to be a quicker offense and that’s kind of our goal.”