Sachse junior Sarah Naidoo sets up a teammate for a hit during a match in the Allen Texas Open. The Lady Mustangs cruised to a 3-0 sweep of Mesquite on Tuesday, Aug. 25. Photo by David Wolman / C&S Media
By Devin Hasson
Sachse has been a perennial district contender, and often champion, and playoff team since its inaugural campaign in 2004.
The Mustangs understand that the early stages of the season are not what matters most, but there are still frustrations when things do not go the way they hoped, and that has been the case against some of the top competition in the state, as they brought a 4-11 record into Tuesday’s non-district clash with Mesquite (5-7).
Sachse took out some of those frustrations on the Skeeters.
The Mustangs roared to a dominant win in the opening set, and while Mesquite made some adjustments, it did not matter in the end, as Sachse earned a 25-7, 25-19, 25-17 sweep at Sachse High School.
“In the first set, we looked really solid, we were hitting our positions, and it was our first home game, so they were pretty excited,” Sachse head coach Rikki Jones said. “It was a great start, honestly. We’ve been trying to focus on having fewer unforced errors, and we did a pretty good job on that. And second set, third set, we didn’t necessarily get sloppy, but we missed some plays that we need to get. But that gives us something to focus on. Still some stuff to work on, but nice to get the win.”
The Mustangs set the tone from the start, reeling off the first seven points of the match, a run that includes a nice service run from Sarah Naidoo and a pair of kills from Jayla Butler.
It did not get any easier for Mesquite from there, as Harper Holt served a pair of aces and Khloe Ellis and Amyah Davis added kills to make it 14-4.
With a commanding lead, Ella Smith took over down the stretch, recording four of her six kills in the game to help close out a 25-7 win.
The second set was tight at the start, and in fact, Mesquite actually took a 13-11 lead after a kill from Janessa Orozco.
But Sachse had an answer, as it would close on a 14-6 run. The Mustangs spread the wealth, getting points from Smith, Ellis, Butler, Davis and Natallie Rainey to rally for the two-set lead.
Looking to close out the sweep, Sachse grabbed an early lead and never relinquished it. Freshman Addyson Cheatham provided a spark with three kills in the middle stages to open an 11-7 lead and the Lady Mustangs pulled away from there, with Fallin Whitmore capping the night with a kill to finish off the win.
While the Mustangs’ record is still not flashy, Tuesday represented progress, as Jones has been focused on things other than the win-loss column during the first month.
“It’s always ball control, serve-receive, so I need to make sure I have more personnel stepping up defensively and with serve-receive, and then offensively, we just need to improve our hitting percentage a little bit, we’re making some untimely mistakes, but both of those things are on us and we can control that,” she said. “They are doing a good job, they are being coachable, they are listening, they are a really good group of kids and they are doing a good job of trying to soak in everything and improve every day.”
After playing their first home match of the season, Sachse returns to the road later this week for a tournament in College Station, a trip that Jones is hopeful will be a good bonding experience.
And while like every season, the Mustangs feature some new faces, their two-plus decades of excellence has set the bar high, and this group is not shying away from that.
“The standard is the standard, and I may have had to change approaches since 25 years ago. Some of my kids come back and said, ‘You are so easy on them,’ but the approach changes. Different kids need different things, but the standard is the standard,” she said. ” And they want that, too. They want to make the number proud and the school proud and the community proud, like they always have, and they are doing a good job.”
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