Houston Stratford Survives Arlington Martin 15-13, 12-15, 15-10

Houston Stratford advanced to the finals of the 5A state tournament but not without a fight from a young, but tenacious group of Warriors from Arlington Martin.

Arlington Martin, down a game and trailing 6-0 and 12-8 in game two, rallied for 7 straight points to force deciding third game. After falling behind 6-1 in game 3, the Warriors rallied again to within 11-9 before Millicent Martin, who had struggled for much of the evening, took over with critical kills and a match-ending ace to send Stratford into the state championship match for the second straight year.

Much of Stratford's problems were self-inflicted. In game 2, Arlington Martin's final six points came on Stratford errors.

Martin, who started and finished strong but struggled in between, led Stratford with 15 kills and senior middle Becca Sartori added 12. Stratford's all-Texas setter Michelle Moriarty was near perfect once again and finished with 37 assists. Freshman Taylor Barnes led Martin with 8 kills and sophomore Amy Weigle had 7. Daniela Romero had 14 assists and Barnes added 9.

Both teams struggled with the other's aggressive serves. Stratford had 12 serve receive errors and Arlington Martin had 10.

"I think we became complacent and gave them a chance to get back into their offense," said Stratford coach Becky Palermo. "We needed to keep serving aggressively and taking chances with our serves."

"We quit focusing," said Moriarty. "We thought we had it won already."

"Millicent has a tendency to go up early on her approach," said Palermo. "She gets in a mode (out of sync). Then she gets frustrated when she can't hit with speed. This is not the first time. It's like a broken record. We keep reminding her about what to do. But she came back strong in the third game."

"That is the toughest serving team I've seen this year," said Arlington Martin coach Joni McCoy, whose team includes three sophomore and three freshmen. "At the first of the season I couldn't imagine we would have been here. We didn't even win our district. It was a little overwhelming being here for the first time in six years. If we can get here next year it will be to our advantage. Maybe we'll do like we did in '96. That team was supposed to win it and didn't. The '97 team took it upon themselves to win and they did. Maybe next year's team will do the same thing."

The Warriors finish the season at 38-6 while Stratford improves to 35-6.

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