College Park soars to 3-0 pool record, advances to gold bracket in Pearland

The College Park Lady Cavalier Volleyball Team has started the year on fire, winning all three of their pool play games at the Pearland Invitational and securing a spot in the ‘gold bracket’ tomorrow for elimination games. The scores today were 25-14, 25-12 over Elkins; 25-22, 26-28, 25-12 over Barbers Hill; and 25-16, 25-22 over highly ranked Colleyville Heritage. Two days after sweeping a talented John Cooper team (who went 3-0 in pool play themselves), the Lady Cavaliers seem primed to challenge for a top spot in this year’s 87 team tournament.

“The team is excited, it’s a good field of teams,” said head coach Candice Collins. “It’s a strong field, it’s exciting to be here, and hopefully we will place well.”

The middle contest with Barbers Hill had several stoppages, as the referees continued to confer with the scorers table over substitutions and scores. This appeared to break the rhythm of the game, and caused a slight hiccup for College Park.

“We’d get up 3 or 4 points and get comfortable and then let them back in,” said Collins. “It’s early in the season, and we have to push through those points and not get comfortable. They kept pushing us, and we have to learn from that, learn you can come back and win a 3rd set 25-12 like we did.”

Heading into the third game of the day, College Park, seeded 38th, went up against the number seven seed in the tournament, Colleyville Heritage. After the up and down game against Barbers Hill, Collins was unsure what would happen in game three, but College Park dominated. 6’1 senior Emily Thorson led the attack with eight kills, followed closely by junior Kennedi Smith with six. Digging those attacks for College Park was 5’5 junior Savannah Rutledge with seven, Hannah Thorson with seven, and junior Hannah Erwin with five.

“Even when we made an error or mistake, we didn’t let it get to us in this game,” said Collins. “We just played really well.”

After being reseeded after pool play, the Lady Cavaliers jump from the 38th seed all the way to the number seven seed in the ‘gold bracket,’ which is the top bracket for the tournament. They will play at 10am against the winner of a play-in game between 26th seeded Granbury and 39th seeded San Antonio Churchill.