Martin volleyball outlasts Lamar

By Kevin Casas

Special to the Star-Telegram

ARLINGTON -- Four times Arlington Lamar and Arlington Martin have squared off this season and four times Martin has pulled off the victory.

Tuesday might have been one for the ages or, for Martin coach Tracy Perez-Petersen, one that aged her.

The Lady Warriors solved the riddle of Lamar's Ashley Elrod and used a strong defensive effort for a methodical 25-27, 25-22, 26-24, 25-20 District 3-5A win.

"Yeah, that one wore on me," Perez-Petersen said. "When you beat a team that many times, I mean they were just going at us."

And it was Elrod leading the way. She hammered home 22 kills, nine in the set one win, and had Martin on notice.

In set two, both teams played 13 tied points and Perez-Petersen was concerned about the Warriors' substitution count.

Each team is allowed only 18 subs in a set and Martin was at 16 with another rotation to go.

"I called time out and told them we couldn't do that," she said.

Martin went on to sweep the final three sets, but it was far from easy.

Solving Elrod was an enigma as she pounded away from every position and was consistently attacking from the back row.

Alexis Wright, though, proved the game changer for Martin.

With Elrod killing four balls and Lamar forcing three errors in the final stretch of set three, the Lady Vikes rallied to a 24-24 tie.

After Martin's Brenna Karwich gave her team a 25-24 lead, it was left to Elrod to square things up again for Lamar.

She followed a lengthy volley with a shot off the left side of the net, right in to the hands of Wright.

"Obviously they were going to go to her so I was looking for that, just trying to get a good angle," Wright said.

"I just tried to turn my hands in a little and she just hit them square, it was a great feeling to get that one."

"We played better on defense, but we really stepped it up when we needed to," Perez-Petersen said.

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