California High School volleyball was back on the road last Tuesday night.
This time, their schedule took them to the small town of Westphalia to take on the Fatima High School Lady Comets. However, the Lady Pintos would again be plagued by injuries entering a match. They lost senior Lauren Friedrich to a shoulder injury, and junior Emma Parish would also miss the match after suffering a concussion during the previous Thursday's match at Helias Catholic.
Those injuries took a toll as the Lady Comets pulled off an upset 3-2 victory in five sets (25-21, 16-25, 26-24, 16-25, 11-15). The loss dropped the Lady Pintos' record to 16-6-1 as they looked toward the final week of the regular season.
After pulling out a 25-21 win in the opening set, the Lady Pintos ran into trouble in the second when Fatima started to gain confidence and combated California point-for-point. Several miscommunications in the late stages of the second set would cost California chances to go up 2-0. Instead, the Lady Comets tied the series at 1-1 by winning set two 25-16.
Both teams played back and forth from that point on as the Lady Pintos had trouble putting Fatima behind them. The series would go the distance to a fifth and final set.
In the fifth set, Fatima took the lead early and never looked back. The Lady Comets won the fifth set 15-11 to complete the upset.
Lady Pintos head coach Julie Bailey was disappointed about the loss for a number of reasons, one being the absence of both Lauren Fredrich and Emma Parish.
"Losing Emma Parish caused us to make adjustments in multiple places. We had to move Isabella (Kincaid) to the middle because I was concerned about her playing the back row," Bailey said. "Two of our better defenders and passers weren't back in tonight and that made a difference because it was hard for our setters to get the ball and hard for our hitters to hit."
But perhaps the biggest takeaway from the loss to Fatima was California's mental game throughout the match. The Lady Pintos had not played in a full five-game match all season until last Tuesday night. It was unfamiliar territory for California, and Bailey said her team was down mentally after a series of mistakes played on their minds throughout the match.
"I think we had some kids struggling with making mistakes and they got down on themselves instead of brushing it off and moving on to the next point. They let it get to them mentally," Bailey said. "We can't lose that mental game. We haven't been challenged quite as much as we were tonight. I was telling them that when they are challenged, there are going to be points lost and there are going to be mistakes. We've got to move on and play like every point is our last point."
Last Thursday, the Lady Pintos put the pain of the loss to Fatima behind them and defeated School of the Osage 3-0 (25-20, 25-11, 25-16) on their Senior Night.
The Lady Pintos went on to Versailles to take part in the Versailles Invitational Saturday. After losing their first match to Blair Oaks 2-0, California dominated the rest of the tournament by defeating Capital City, Crystal City, Hallsville, Linn and Mid-Buchanan, respectively, en route to a second place finish. California's record currently stands at 22-7-1 as of press time.
The Lady Pintos have now clinched the #1 seed in the Class 3 District 13 volleyball tournament. They will play the winner of the Warsaw-Versailles match in the district semifinals Saturday.