Advosports

Their home wasn't ready, so Victoria West improvised by playing somewhere familiar - Memorial Gym.

Warriors coach Sandy Longoria said the Warriors will hold their first practice at the West gym on Wednesday.

"There were some safety concerns with some of the facilities, so just to play it safe, we had our tryouts and practices here."

But playing at Memorial was like playing at a home away from home, said Jessica Mickey.

"Most of us have played in this gym before and we've been practicing here," said Mickey, who is the Warriors' lone senior and its team captain. "Being here has more of an advantage because if we had played at West, it would have been new to us."

The West gym isn't going to be hosting games for a while. After tonight's season opener, the Warriors will spend more than a month on the road before playing Sweeny on Sept. 17.

All told, the Warriors, will play almost twice the number of games this season on the road, with just six home games - five of those in district play - to 13 road games and possibly more.

Despite jumping out to an early 2-0 game lead against the El Campo Ladybirds in their opener Tuesday, 25-13, 25-14, the Warriors dropped the final three games and the match 16-25, 17-25, 11-15.

The team that showed up in the first, second and fifth sets looked like a different one from the one that dropped the third and fourth.

Mickey said the team made good use of its height on its front three early on.

"We were working really well as a team, everything we did as a team was right," she said. "Every point we had, we celebrated. We never gave up and we worked really well together.

"We do have a lot of height and we do have a lot of hitters. We are going to use that to our ability."

Longoria said the Ladybirds were able to solve Warriors offense and adjust.

"Once they were able to pick up where we were hitting, they were able to change their defense and were able to dig our hitters," she said. "Our level of play, after two games lapsed a little, and maybe our intensity also."

Despite dropping the fifth set, the Warriors found the urgency an energy they had in the first two games, Mickey said. But by them it was too late.

"It was a must-win situation, so we just got into everyone's mind, we had to do this whether they were playing or not," she said.

Youth could also be a factor. Victoria East got many of the seniors from Memorial squad, while West has one senior - Mickey - and two other players with varsity experience.

"These girls are capable of winning a lot of games, I think that was obvious in the first two games," Longoria said. "Maybe there's a lack of varsity experience where they don't complete three out of five, they are used to playing two out of three."

Despite the loss, Mickey said she was encouraged by Tuesday's performance.

"We worked really well, we did have our ups and downs," she said. "We pushed really hard. Whenever we got blocked, we tried to switch it up and we were able to work around it."

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