Round Top-Carmine Sweeps Nordheim
It was a back and forth first set as Norheim kept things close until the Cubettes pulled away towards the end of the set with four straight points to take an 18-14 lead. Round top kept their cushion and ended the set with a kill from Salinas and a 25-17 win. The black and gold scored the first point of the second set and eventually took an 8-2 lead with more kills from Salinas. After a timeout from Nordheim, Round top stretched their lead even more, which included a tip ball from setter Mallory Krause en route to a dominating 25-8 set win.
The Cubettes jumped out to a 9-2 lead in the third set until Nordheim went on a run and made the scoreboard read 13-10. The Lady Pirates hung tough and gave Round Top all they wanted down to the last few points of the set. Round Top maintained an 18-15 lead on a kill from Salinas and outlasted Nordheim with another kill and an ace to secure the set and the overall match at 25-19.
Kaysie Ward had nine kills, Jill Eilers had six. Mallory Krause had 30 assists.
The Round Top-Carmine High School volleyball team advanced to the UIL regional semifinals with a win against Nordheim High School Monday night and swept the Lady Pirates by a final score of 25-17, 25-8, 25-19. Round Top was battled tested by Nordheim, but the Cubettes remained in control throughout the entire match.
“We started with a slow first set. We’ll blame it on it being a Monday,” said Round Top head coach Catie Carney. “We came out, we played lights out in the second set. Did some really good things. Third set, same thing, kind of slow. A lot of things we got to work on throughout the week heading into Friday. A win is a win for us today, but there are some things we need to get better at heading into Friday.”
Senior hitter Ilse Salinas showed her leadership as an upperclassmen, notching 10 kills, nine digs, and three aces. “Our mindset is to kill the ball. Get through what we need to get to,” Salinas said. “We’ve had to work really hard to where we are now. It’s been tough. We’ve been through some lows and I think that we’ve gone through all we need to be strong and to move on forward into the playoffs.”