Wylie Junior Jolene Bao had 11 service aces during Tuesday’s 3-0 win over Garland. Photo by Elijah Kloepping / C&S Media
By David Wolman
GARLAND — Jolene Bao didn’t set a goal for the number of service aces that she wanted to record during Tuesday’s District 9-6A road match against Garland. But her mindset was to post an ace every time that she stepped behind the service line.
The aces came frequently.
On a night in which she posted 11 aces during Wylie’s 25-21, 25-14, 25-14 win, Bao was particularly on point with her serving during the first set.
Bao frustrated the Lady Owls to the tune of seven consecutive aces. Garland called a timeout after Bao’s sixth ace, but she wasn’t done. She notched two more aces over the next three points, the last of which gave Wylie an 11-2 lead.
“The last two practices, we’ve been doing serving under pressure,” Bao said. “It came into play today.”
Bao has had longer runs behind the service line this season.
“That’s actually the second or third time that she’s done that during district,” Head Coach Sherry Olivares said. “One of her games, she had 11 aces on 14 serves. That’s what we practice, serving under pressure.”
For as accurate as Bao was behind the service line, Wylie had to weather an oncoming onslaught by Garland, with the Lady Owls capitalizing on several errors by the Lady Pirates to get back into the match.
The Lady Owls’ energy reached its peak late in the first set.
Sophomore middle blocker Nirayah Newman blocked a shot that was hit by Lady Pirates junior Aubrey DeGrate to reduce what had been a 12-2 lead for Wylie to 23-21.
“We scored a lot of their points in the first set,” Olivares said. “We have five serving errors, eight hitting errors and three or four net violations. That’s 10 or 12 points for them. If you take that away, we win by a lot more. So, we just cleaned up our game.”
Garland didn’t get any closer. DeGrate avenged the block with a kill on the next point. Moments later, junior Julia Hudgins hit the ball off the left hand of Newman, and the ball dropped onto the court for a kill and a 1-0 Wylie lead in the best-of-five match.
Wylie picked up the tempo in the second set and the faster pace allowed the Lady Pirates to get off to a dominant start.
Senior Olivia Royal notched back-to-back aces to give Wylie a 3-0 lead and that advantage later grew to 10-2 after DeGrate notched her first of four kills in the middle set.
DeGrate finished the match with 11 kills and four digs. She was one of three Lady Pirates to finish in double digits in kills. Green posted a team-high 13 kills, while Hudgins had the volleyball version of a double-double with 12 digs and 12 kills.
It was more of the same in set three.
Wylie took advantage of three hitting errors by Garland over the first four points to stake out to an early lead before using a 12-6 run later in the set to pull away and polish off the sweep of the Lady Owls.
The win gives Wylie (18-11, 7-0) momentum heading into Friday’s home match against rival Sachse (13-13, 6-0), when first place in District 9-6A will be on the line.
“It feels great to be 7-0,” Bao said. “I’m super excited about this season because the team is doing really good. There is a lot of potential this year.”
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