As expected, the Wimberley Lady Texans repeated as state 3A champs here Saturday afternoon, but it was anything but easy. The Lady Hawks of Texarkana Pleasant Grove matched the state powerhouse kill for kill, block for block and dig for dig in a match that was much closer than anyone had imagined.

In fact, the Lady Texans found themselves trailing 8-6 and tied at 9-9 in game 2 before running off four straight to take back control.

In the end, however, Wimberley had enough firepower to capture their third state title in the past four years and improve their season record to 38-2.

Abby Meyer led the Lady Texans with 10 kills, Courtney McCrocklin had 9 and Ashley Leach added 8. Junior setter Jesi Grisham won her second straight MVP trophy and had 32 assists in running the Lady Texan offense.

Texarkana (34-3) countered with power of its own, led by 5'10" senior Amanda Schwartz who had 9 kills while Jenna Malloy and Libby Morgan had 6 each. Morgan, a 6-foot senior, and Blair Belvedere had great matches digging Wimberley's bullets. Finally, setter Blair Belvedere was outstanding in getting the ball to her hitters from everywhere on the court and finished with 23 assists.

"It's like I said yesterday, we were planning for a dog fight," said Wimberley coach Lee Grisham."It was everything we wanted and a lot more than we bargained for. They put up a big block and were in our face all day. We're not used to getting blocked like that. And we still haven't stopped their right side. Ultimately, I think the experience and playing the schedule we played was the difference. We've been in tough situations all year and we new what we had to do."

Jesi Grisham agreed. "We weren't worried (when they trailed in game 2)," she said. "We've been in bigger holes before so we knew we could come back."

"Volleyball is such a momentum game that when we fell behind, we said 'OK, we know what we have to do to get it back," said McCrocklin.

"Since this is my senior year, my ultimate goal was to win my last game," Meyer. "It feels great to play someone that's the perfect match-up and the perfect feeling to beat them."

Texarkana coach Melissa Daniel said she, too, expected a battle.

"I knew that if we were playing well we would give them a good game," said Daniel. "We weren't able to get to our block like we usually do because they were running their quick offense and sending their middles everywhere. We do that, too, but we haven't really played anyone else who does it."

Statistical leaders

Wimberley
Kills - Meyer 10, McCrocklin 9, Leach 8, Westfall and Goldstein 6.
Assists - Grisham 32
Blocks - Meyer and Westfall 1
Aces - McCrocklin and Goldstein 2, Grisham, Leach, Meyer and Westfall 1
Digs - Meyer and McCrocklin 8, Leach 7, Grisham and Westfall 6

Texarkana Pleasant Grove
Kills - Schwartz 9, Malloy and Morgan 6, Smith and Bassett 3
Assists - Belvedere 23
Aces - Belvedere 2, Schwartz, Smith and Morgan 1
Blocks - Smith 1S, 2A; Bassett 1S; Schwartz 3A
Digs - Belvedere 10, Morgan 9, Schwartz 6