Schulenburg Win Regional Volleyball Title and Heads to State’s Final Four

It was never easy. But that made the celebration all the more epic for the Lady Horns.

Hanging on the brink of elimination the entire regional tournament, the Schulenburg volleyball team staged epic comebacks Friday and Saturday to win the Region IV-2A title and earn a trip back to state for the second consecutive year.

“I asked them last night and I asked them again today ‘do you want your season to end today’ and they didn’t want it to end,” said Schulenburg head coach Donald Zapalac.

Down two sets to one Friday in the regional semifinals Schulenburg rallied to win the final two sets 25-22, 15-8 to down Stockdale.

That set the stage for Saturday’s regional final against Johnson City, which the Lady Horns had beaten last year to earn a trip to state.

“But Johnson City was more of a team this year. They played tremendously,” Coach Zapalac said.

And the Johnson City almost avenged last year’s regional final loss.

Almost. Schulenburg won the first and third sets 25-22 and 2514, sandwiched around a 2426 Johnson City win in the second set.

Then Johnson City really rolled in the fourth set winning 25-10 and kept that momentum going into the fifth set taking leads of 7-2 and later 12-10. During one timeout in the fifth set, Magliolo vividly remembered what her coach said.

“He said he believed in us and we had to believe in ourselves,” Magliolo said.

Magliolo (who had 10 kills Friday and 12 Saturday) dominated at the net late for Schulenburg as they climbed back into the game with four straight points to take a 14-12 lead.

A hitting error by Schulenburg cut that lead to one and gave the serve back to Johnson City.

But a perfect pass by Kieryn Adams (on a tough serve) and a strong set by Landry Zapalac led to a game-winning kill for Magliolo.

“We’ve been working really hard to get to where we are today,” said Magliolo, who had eight blocks Friday and five Saturday. “Playing in a match like that was super exciting and shows what we are made of, and that we can fight back.”

That point touched off a wild celebration for a huge Schulenburg crowd that had showed up for the match, including several football players who ironically had been knocked from the playoffs the night before by Johnson City.

But Johnson City couldn’t complete the two-sport sweep of the Horns.

“It did come across my mind. I didn’t want them to be able to say they beat us last night and beat us today,” Coach Zapalac said.

Emmrie Marx was huge the entire regional tournament. The junior, who was a manager on last year’s state qualifying team, had a teamhigh 19 kills Friday and a team-high 20 Saturday.

“Winning together feels great,” Marx said. “I had some doubts, but I prayed, and we came through.”

Landry Zapalac was a steadying force for the Lady Horns all weekend, with 58 assists and 11 digs Friday and 44 assists and 10 digs Saturday. Reagan Dusek had 14 kills Friday and nine more Saturday. Avery Helms had 11 digs Friday. Keaton Walker had 10 Saturday. Brooke Redding had three kills Friday and a key kill late Saturday.

Time and again over the weekendAdams came up with important digs, and she led the team with 45 digs Friday and 30 more Saturday.

“This team has worked all season for this and we knew we deserved it,” Adams said. “It showed when we were down in the fifth set and we kept fighting to get where we needed to be.

“Since losing last year at state we’ve wanted to get back there.”

At state, the Lady Horns (37-12) will face Iola (49-1) Wednesday at 5 p.m. in Garland. The winner of that match advances to Friday’s state title match against the Windthorst (44-5)/Crawford (42-7) victor.

Last year the Lady Horns lost to eventual state champ Windthorst in the state semis.

But this is a different, more experienced, Lady Horns team, with five key seniors (Magliolo, Adams, Brooke Redding, Gipson and Walker).

And maybe mostly importantly, they are supremely battle tested after a slugfest of a regional tournament.

“I love my team,” said senior Jessalyn Gipson, who had 17 kills in the semis and 10 in Saturday’s final. “Everybody’s heart was racing, but we do really good under pressure.”