Monahans Falls Sort Against Trinity
    By John Hasselmeier, Odessa American, September 28, 2005

LUBBOCK Beating a team four times in a season can be a daunting task, indeed.

The Monahans Lady Loboes learned that the hard way Tuesday night.

Monahans fell at Trinity Christian 25-20, 25-16, 18-25, 25-21, their first loss to the Lady Lions in four matches this season.

Making the task even more difficult for Monahans was the fact that, in head coach Patty Dominguez' opinion, the Lady Loboes played "safe" the first two games.

"The girls came out and played 'safe,' and that hurt us," Dominguez said.  "It took me two games to get that point across to them."

Monahans played with much more fire in the third game.  After spotting Trinity Christian the first point of the game, the Lady Loboes scored the next four and weren't headed the rest of the way.

Brittany Hughes, who had 22 kills for Monahans, did receive some help in the match in that department as Alison Miller had 14 kills.  In fact, Miller put the Lady Loboes at game point in the third game with a kill, and Hughes finished off Trinity Christian with another kill.

Christian with another kill.

In the fourth game, Monahans trailed 15-10 before rallying. The Lady Loboes cut it to 17-16 before Trinity Christian head coach Todd Hay called a timeout.

"I just told them the same thing I told them in every timeout," Hay said. "I told them this was a fun match and nothing more than that."

While Hughes had help from Miller, Trinity's Kelsea Loveless had even more help. Loveless had 20 kills, Jessica Legako had 14 kills and Brooke Johnson had 12 kills.

Following Hay's timeout, Monahans tied the score at 17 on a Trinity net violation. The game went back-and-fourth for a while after that, with the Lady Loboes taking a 21-20 lead on a Miller kill.

"It did look like we were going to go five games there for a while," Dominguez said. "But we just made too many errors.

Miller's last kill would be the last point Monahans would score.

Legako got a kill to tie the score and then slammed down another one for a 22-21 lead. Legako finished the match three points later when she sent a kill that rolled across the top of the net and landed on the floor.

"It was a learning experience," Dominguez said. "The biggest thing we learned from this was that anyone can win at anytime, including against us."

Keyed by Jason Dimm and Chino Arsiaga, Seniors