Lady Rattlers take second place at Bastrop Tournament

The Lady Rattlers had to battle to make it to the championship round. Of the nine matches San Marcos played at the Bastrop tournament over the weekend, five of them went to a third set, winning three of them. 

Though they weren’t able to take first place, the tournament showed how much the Lady Rattlers had improved.

The team struggled to grind out matches the week before. Of the eight matches San Marcos played from Aug. 9-11, only three of them went to a third set, all of them losses.

The team went 2-6 at the tournament, then swept Crockett on Aug. 14 to improve to 4-7 overall. 

“We played some great competition and the games we lost were close,” head coach Michelle Moreno said. “The team started to gel, my setters started connecting with our hitters and my team of 17 began working as a team. We learned a lot that weekend.”

At Bastrop, San Marcos wanted to show off what they had learned.

The Lady Rattlers opened pool play on Thursday by sweeping Rudder and Elgin. After dropping the first set to Lockhart, 25-15, San Marcos battled back to take the next two games, 25-21 and 25-18 to take the match.

“(We) gained some confidence, and took that experience (from the Pearland Tournament) into week two,” Moreno said.

The team picked up another win in a sweep over Austin, but lost its next two matches against Temple and Hendrickson, 2-1. Despite the losses, the Lady Rattlers had done enough to earn a spot in the “gold” bracket of the tournament.

San Marcos had to dig deep through the first two rounds. Bellville kept everything close, with each set being decided by just two points. The Lady Rattlers took the first set, 25-23, dropped the next, 26-24, then closed out the final game, 25-23. It took the same effort in the next round against Taft as they closed out the match 2-1 again.

The Lady Rattlers couldn’t keep the momentum up in the next round, though. They fell to Cooper in the championship match, losing both sets, 25-21 and 25-12. Despite taking second, Moreno was pleased by her team’s effort.

“Our fight paid off,” Moreno said. “My team left it all on the court and had fun doing it. These games could have gone either way, however, I was proud of their resilient performance.”

Senior middle blocker Shyeann Lampkin was named to the All-Tournament team with 103 kills and 16 blocks, along with senior libero Celie Contreras, who racked up 124 digs.

San Marcos (10–10) will take on Lockhart at the Snake Pit on Tuesday at 6 p.m. before hosting the Ragin’ Rattler Tournament from Thursday to Saturday.