By Larry Gage
Special to the PRESS
The Port Isabel Lady Tarpons lost to Progreso Tuesday night in straights sets at Tarpon Gym. The Lady Red Ants won by the scores of 32-30, 25-15, 25-16.
After winning their district-opening match against Raymondville, it was the Lady Tarpons’ sixth straight loss in league competition. They fell at Zapata last Saturday, also in straight sets, 25-10, 25-12, 25-21. P.I. is now 1-6 in district matches and the first half of the district season is now complete.
The first set was close all the way as neither team could go up by more than three points. Progreso finally prevailed in a game that took 29 minutes to complete. In the second set Progreso took control by scoring eight of the first ten points, but Port Isabel came back to tie it up at 14. The visitors took 11 of the last 12 points to take a 2-0 lead in the match.
“We could have come out on the winning end much earlier in that first game,” head P.I. coach Julie Breedlove said afterwards. “We let them score a couple of points on their serve-receive on us. Even though we serve-received the ball well, we just didn’t put the ball where our hitters could get to it very well.”
Facing elimination in the third set the Lady Tarpons again let Progreso get out to a good lead, 10-4, and were never able to close the gap. The Lady Red Ants closed it out with a 25-16 win.
“We always start off slow but once we get rolling, we can get rolling,” Progreso head coach Jacqueline Gonzalez told the Press after the match. “They had opportunities, we had opportunities, but we were able to capitalize whenever it mattered.”
Progreso remains in fourth place in the district standings with a 4-3 record. Port Isabel is last at 1-6.
Breedlove assessed the problem of letting the other team get out to an early lead in a given set.
“When the other team gets out to four, five-point lead, it makes a big difference. Now we have to play catch-up – we need to string together the points and we’re just not stringing them together like we need to.”
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