By CHARLES RICHARDS
eParisExtra.com
ATHENS, Texas — The 16th-ranked Lady Dragon volleyball team of Paris Junior College started slow, but rallied late behind Katie Poole on Wednesday to defeat Trinity Valley Community College in five sets.
Katie Poole
With the 19-25, 26-24, 19-25, 25-23, 15-11 victory, PJC improved to 17-6 overall and 3-1 in Region 14 play. Coach Justin Maness’ team is in second place at the mid-point of conference play behind the seventh-ranked Apache Ladies of Tyler Junior Conference (16-2, 4-0).The Lady Dragons’ next game is at the Hunt Center on the PJC campus at noon Saturday against Ranger College.
“The environment at Trinity Valley was similar to ours. Their fans supported them well, and it took us a little time to get settled in, while Trinity Valley came out ready to play,” Maness said.
“It was just back and forth. They won the first set, we won the second, they won the third, we won the fourth, and then we won the fifth,” Maness said.
“Our serves and passes weren’t where we wanted to be, but in the game that counted, it was there,” the coach said.
Poole, a 5-8 sophomore from Rowlett, had 13 kills and 17 defensive digs. Andi Hurt added eight kills, with Katie Clapp and Abby Phillips adding seven kills each, and T’Asia Black had four kills.
Lauren Hamaker had a team-high 21 assists, and Jordan Strickland had 15 assists. Black also had four blocks, and Hurt had two block assists.
The start of Wednesday’s match against Trinity Valley was reminiscent of the Lady Dragons’ performance on Monday at Hillsboro, where Hill College snapped PJC’s 11-match winning streak with a win in three sets – 25-19, 25-23, 25-16.
If PJC had to lose, that was the one.
“It might have actually been a good thing, it being a non-conference match,” Maness said. “It was like a slap in the face.”
He added, “I don’t want to discredit Hill College, because they’re a good team, but we just did not have a good night at all. The team that we are just didn’t show.”
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Charles Richards Charles Richards moved to Paris in 2004 after retiring from a 40-year career in journalism – the last 26 years as a news writer and sports writer with The Associated Press in Dallas and Washington, D.C. In mid-2004, The Paris News coaxed him out of retirement, and he began covering the police, court and regional beat for The Paris News. Then in early 2005, he was switched to coverage of a sharply divided Paris City Council. He was appointed by the City Council in 2006 to the 12-member City Charter Review Commission, which extensively rewrote the outmoded document. His writing awards include two first-place awards in statewide competition for feature writing. The most recent was his 2005 story on a Paris doctor’s startling use of leeches in a successful attempt to re-attach a man’s severed ear. Over his career, Richards’ interview subjects include Alabama Gov. George Wallace, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, David Koresh, Arnold Palmer, Muhammad Ali and numerous other political and sports figures. He is an alumnus of Texas Tech, where he was editor of the school newspaper. He lives in Paris with his wife, Barbara, who is retired after 30 years as a teacher and high school counselor.
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