Photo by Reily Chestnut
Before the match, Head Coach Ashley Farris was feeling grateful after she was honored for surpassing 100 wins as the leader of the Lady Matadors.
Unfortunately, the successful program leader spent most of the night in a station of quiet frustration.
The Matadors opened district play with a disappointing 3–0 loss to a strong MacArthur front, a performance that Farris said fell well short of their usual expectations.
“That definitely was not the Matador standard at all tonight,” Farris said, noting that the match was marred by “self‑inflicting errors” that were especially uncharacteristic from the back row.
Farris pointed to the unusually high number of substitutions as a sign of how unsettled things were for her team.
“You saw how many subs we had to go through, right? So that’s kind of uncommon, especially this late [in] the season,” she explained. “Started off in district, you would kind of want to see a little bit more of something more familiar, something more comfortable. So that’s a little frustrating.”
Playing what she considers their first true home match of the year; Farris was candid about her disappointment that the Matadors couldn’t defend their court.
I cannot argue after watching Seguin fail to tie the match for set three. The team held a 24-21 lead before crumbling in set two 28-26. Never mind starting the match behind 7-1 in the opening round.
“It’s a little disappointing being at home, being our first district game, and this is truly our first home game too… just, you know, a little disappointed not protecting our own home court. You know, we’ll have to travel to them next round.”
Beyond the single result, Farris stressed that the team has now moved into a phase of the season where every detail matters.
“This is no longer preseason, right? Every single play, every rep, every set, every practice, everything matters at this point,” she said. “This isn’t just about this preseason. It’s not about this pregame speech. This is something we’ve been working on since last November… These seniors have been building [toward this] for the last three years.”
Her message to the players is to grasp the bigger picture and respond with maturity—especially on nights when things aren’t clicking.
One player who has been carrying the load showed up once again. Team captain Elli Anderson led the way with 15 kills off a .346 hitting clip. Alas, her night featured taking a stinging kill to her face and returning to the bench for a few points as she fought through tears. Annyn Houston also finished with double-digit kills (11) off a .333 hitting percentage.
Now the question will be how Seguin learns from this messy district opener to even their district record when they visit Veterans Memorial on Friday at 6:30pm.
Hopefully the pain of tonight’s loss will wake up the 9-17 Lady Matadors as they begin their quest to three-peat in district.