The Class 6A No. 18 Sachse Lady Mustangs visited Central Texas on Tuesday evening, as they took on the TGCA’s Class 6A No. 1 Klein Lady Bearkats in the Class 6A Region II Semifinal in Belton.

The Lady Mustangs broke Klein’s 62-set winning-streak in the opening game. However, the Lady Bearkats emerged with a 3-1 match victory over Sachse.

The scores of the match were 25-27, 25-17, 25-16 and 25-18.

“We did not play extremely well,” Sachse Head Coach Rikki Jones said. “We had a number of errors, uncharacteristic, unable to execute, especially on the outside. I had multiple players really have their worse nights, at the same time.”

The win helped Klein (25-0) to advance into Region II finals against Wylie, who swept The Woodlands in Bryan on Tuesday evening. The scores of that match were 25-17, 25-20 and 25-17.

Favor Anyanwu’s block and kill got Sachse off to a 4-3 lead in the opening game.

Liz Woods had two assists on kills by Anyanwu in the middle of the set, where the Lady Mustangs stretched their advantage to five points, 15-10.

Klein was forced to call a timeout to regroup and earned the first two points out of the break.

Sachse continued to push the tempo of the match, with steady ball control and movement. However, the Lady Bearkats began to counter the Lady Mustangs’ patience with hard kills in the backcourt, which forced Jones to call a timeout to strategize for the counter-attack of the Lady Bearkats.

Trailing 23-19, Klein put together a quick 5-1 run and fought off a game-point with a kill by Kiersten McFall. Claire Romo set up a kill by Kayla Grant to put Sachse up, 25-24.

Annie Antar’s backcourt kill tied the game at 25-25. Sachse was able to capture the last two points to take the opening game by the two-point minimum.

The opening-game win by Sachse snapped a 62-set winning streak by Klein, dating back to a 25-21 loss in the second set of a match with Fort Bend Ridge Point back on Sept. 19.

The first-game loss ignited the Bearkats and they trailed just once more the entire match: on the first point of the second game, scored on a kill by Anyanwu.

“We did not play great and you do not want your last match to feel like you left something in the tank,” Jones said. “They (Klein) are a good team and I wish that we would have played better tonight.”

For the full story, see the Dec. 10  issue or subscribe online.

By Tony Adams • Special to The Sachse News