Volleyball: Heritage outlasts Flower Mound in thriller

IRVING - Already in the midst of its deepest playoff run in program history, Flower Mound's volleyball team came oh so close to taking it one step further Monday night before eventually falling short against Colleyville Heritage in the UIL Region I quarterfinals (27-29, 25-22, 25-16, 25-27, 15-10) at Irving MacArthur.

The Lady Jaguars were making their second consecutive postseason appearance following a three-year hiatus.

"This was amazing," said Jordan Anderson, Flower Mound senior outside hitter. "We've never done something like this and the team fought so hard. Colleyville is a great team and I played club with a lot of the girls on their team. It wasn't great to lose, but we still fought till the end and I'm glad we didn't give up.

"This was a great feeling to get the train rolling so maybe in the next few years the new players can remember us and look up to us and try to do the same thing."

Heritage, meanwhile, continues to the semifinals where they faced Southlake Carroll at 6 p.m. Friday at the Glen Rose ISD Tiger Arena (results not available as of press time). The other semifinal pits Coppell against Arlington at 8 p.m.

In a game full of momentum swings, one of the largest came midway through the second set when Heritage erased a 19-13 margin to win the game when the Lady Jaguars had a chance to obtain a commanding 2-0 lead. The set included a critical call that went against Flower Mound when the Lady Panthers hit a ball out that was ruled to be tipped. The subsequent discussion allowed Heritage to regroup trailing, 14-8, instead of 15-7. The Lady Panthers then took 10 of the next 15 points.

"I think that those types of calls are tough to make," said Marci Brinkman, Flower Mound head coach. "You have to trust the judgment of the referees and I think we needed to do a better job of focusing after that. But in this kind of high-intensity game you can see the momentum shift so quickly with all of the fans. Both teams are excellent so any momentum shift can really fire up a team to push five or six points. We needed to focus a little better."

The Lady Jaguars then dropped the third set before overcoming a sizable deficit of their own, rallying back from down 15-10 in the fourth set - a game which included eight combined double-touch violations - including fighting off a pair of set points, to force a fifth and decisive game.

But in the fifth set, the Lady Panthers claimed the first six points and carried the early lead to the win.

"We made too many errors from the get-go," Brinkman said. "I was proud of how they fought back and worked it little by little. It wasn't just one certain thing. It was all across the board. Random errors here and there that all added up and that was what killed us in the beginning."

"It was 100 percent heart," Anderson added. "We lost those two games and there was no way we were losing the fourth game. We gave it our all and even in the last game, we were down but tried to come back. We just dug too deep of a hole."

Flower Mound got out to a fast start in Game 1, claiming 6-of-7 points to start the match, including a block-kill by Amberli Cluff on the opening point and a pair of kills from Anderson. The Lady Panthers then ran off a 14-3 spurt to lead, 15-9, prompting a Flower Mound timeout.

Brinkman's words had an impact, though, as the Lady Jaguars got back in the set and tied the score, 17-17, after a drop-kill by Briana Allmon and a pair of terminations from Anderson. The teams went back-and-forth until Flower Mound secured the set with an ace by Layne and error by the Lady Panthers. The Lady Jaguars also fought off multiple set points on block-kills by Anderson and Lauren Cox.

Anderson led Flower Mound with 24 kills to go with 10 digs, while Allmon had 20 kills and 12 digs and Cox had seven kills. Molly Werts and Layne paced the Lady Jaguars with 24 and 22 assists, respectively, while Kristyn Schott had 12 digs, Layne had 11 and Logan Kelly had eight. Flower Mound also had 10 blocks as a team.

"We were really scrappy and disciplined on defense and you can see the digs spread out across the board," Brinkman said.

While the final result wasn't as desired, Brinkman couldn't have been more pleased with the effort and hopes the work ethic continues in the future.

"I think this is a testament to how our team started last season," she said. "They started that attitude and this team built on it and was even stronger. Our group of seniors were amazing leaders and we had tons of our players play through injuries. Jordan has been playing through one and Elizabeth Boyd had heart surgery and is here playing in a playoff game. Who would have thought that she would have been here playing as strong as she did after having heart surgery back in August? This team definitely has always played with heart and you can see that on the court.

"We talked in the locker room about how proud we are of the seniors and for showing the younger ones the way to do it. We'll work hard and continue the tradition that started last year. We have a lot of young kids, but I have no doubt they'll step it up and we should have a lot of talent coming up, too."

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