Schulenburg Wins Regional Volleyball Title; State-Bound

The past two seasons, the Schulenburg volleyball team has been knocking on the door of the state tournament, only to fall one win short in 2020 and 2021.

This year’s Lady Horns broke down the door.

With a dominating two-day performance at the regional tournament in Brenham, the Schulenburg girls swept Three Rivers Friday and then swept Johnson City Saturday to win the regional title and earn that long-awaited state berth.

“We have wanted this so bad. I knew we could do it,” said towering 6-foot-1 Lady Horn junior middle blocker Meredith Magliolo, whose spike closed out Saturday’s win and touched off a wild celebration by the Lady Horns and their big crowd of fans that made the trip to Brenham.

TheLadyHorns(32-16)now advance to the state semifinals where they will face Windthorst (39-8) at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Garland’s Culwell Center. The winner of that match plays the Jewett Leon (45-5)/Lindsay (389) winner 3 p.m. Friday for the state title.

This trip to state is the first for the Schulenburg girls since they won it all back in 2014.

“We’ve had some really good teams that fell short that were in this same position and couldn’t quite get over this hump,” said longtime Schulenburg volleyball coach Donald Zapalac. “It was just believing that they could do it.”

This regional title run has been fueled by a depth few teams have.

In Friday’s 25-15, 25-13, 2519 win over Three Rivers, five different Lady Horns had five or more kills.

Three Rivers didn’t know who to try to block.

Tamara Otto had five kills, Brooke Redding had seven, Jesslyn Gipson and Magliolo had nine and Mackenzie Kunschick had 12 in Friday’s match.

“We started to realize that we need to feed off our teammates. You do your job and let them do theirs and everybody can be successful,” Donald Zapalac said. “Against Three Rivers we spread the ball around as much as we have all year.” Friday freshmen Landry Zapalac led the team in digs with 17 Friday and in assists with 30.

Saturday she added 31 more assists.

Nerves are not a factor for this freshman.

“Honestly not really, I had a lot of support from my team. We all pick each other up every time there was a mistake so I never felt the pressure was just on me,” Landry said.

It was actually Landry’s move to setter earlier this season that may have helped spark this postseason run. Landry didn’t even start the season on the varsity, but was later moved up as a outside hitter. But in late August Schulenburg was still sputtering and had a 14-13 record. “I just didn’t like the way this team was growing,” said Coach Zapalac, Landry’s father. “I was so proud the last two years especially of where we started and where we grew to be, and I didn’t see that progress coming together this year.”

Zapalac proposed a radical idea – shift all-state setter Tamara Otto to outside hitter and move Landry to setter.

“It was a big adjustment, but gave us more firepower on the right side with Tamara there, Coach Zapalac said. “I told the girls I’m either going to look like an idiot or look like a genius.”

The first match in the revised lineup, Schulenburg defeated defending state champ Fayetteville in four sets and the rest is history. They have gone 18-3 since the change, with two of those losses coming to 4A teams.

“No one knew at the beginning of the season that this is how the season would go, but we just became more amazing,” said Kunschick.

“We’ve just progressed together and it works,” Redding said. In Saturday’s 25-15, 25-20, 25-21 win over Johnson City, the Lady Horns dug balls that the Lady Eagles had counted on as points most of the season.

Kieryn Adams led Schulenburg with 24 digs, Otto added 18 and Avery Helms had 10.

Offensively it was another balanced attack. Gipson and Kunschick each had 13 kills. Magliolo had five, Otto four and Redding two.

Now attention turns to state. Several of this year’s players were elementary-aged kids watching from the stands in that title match eight years ago. Landry and her brother Blaine were little “assistant coaches” on the bench for Donald and his wife Melissa on that team in 2014.

Now they are all returning for their try at state gold.

“Hopefully we can go up there and win it,” Landry said. “The family bond we’ve created on this team is amazing.”