There were a number of times throughout Friday night’s match inside a relatively warm, humid gym at Waco University High School when Chaparral’s players used their hands to fans themselves.
That might’ve worked briefly but, really, there was no cooling down the Lady Bobcats during a sizzling Class 5A Division I area-round performance.
Mikayla Gray tallied a team-high 11 kills, Giomarlie Cruz, Kemani Washington and Deliana Iosefo had four kills apiece, and Chaparral cruised past North Mesquite 25-10, 25-13, 25-9 for the area championship and a spot in the regional semifinals.
That third-round matchup will be against McKinney North at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 12 at Waxahachie High School.
It was only a couple of days ago that the Lady Bobcats (25-12) were celebrating a first-round victory –– the program's first in its three-year history.
On Friday, they looked like they had been to the second round one hundred times over, never appearing frazzled or out of sync. As such, Chaparral trailed only once –– 1-0 in the first set.
“We talked a lot about if we could get past the first round, we would get past those nerves and the anxiety about playing a team we don’t know,” Chaparral head coach Sarah Neal said. “We saw a little bit of film on North Mesquite, but I just told the girls to go out and execute the game that we’ve been playing. It paid off.”
Washington added six blocks, Bailey Thompson, Jeish Reyes, Aryanna Gonzalez, Gray and Washington combined for 10 service aces, and Alondra Rosario had a team-high 12 digs.
“I feel like we’ve worked so hard to be where we are, and we just had the mentality to play hard because we have places to be and points to prove,” Cruz said. “We are a three-year program and we built this to win.”
District 16-5A champion Chaparral has won 12 matches in a row, a streak that can be traced all the way back to the league opener on Sept. 27.
In between the second and third sets Friday –– already with a 2-0 match advantage –– the Spice Girls song “Wannabe” blared over the gym’s speakers. Plenty of the Lady Bobcats started signing “Tell me what you want, what you really, really want.”
Chaparral showed in closing out the triumph in straight sets that what they wanted was another gold ball, which they hoisted and posed for pictures with after the match.
“It’s just the want to be here,” Cruz said. “We know our game is fast-paced, and we have the energy and the heart. We just want to win.”
More photos of the area-round win can be found here.
Chaparral was one of two KISD volleyball teams to advance to the area round this season.
Harker Heights, which returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2020, had its memorable run come to an end Thursday night 25-19, 25-9, 25-19 against Wylie East.
The Lady Knights postseason win in the first round was the program’s first.
