Still in the early part of its season, the Permian volleyball team has been trying to get back up to speed.

It saw an increased pace from opponents during last weekends’ tournament in Monahans — winning the gold bracket’s consolation championship.

Tuesday night in a dual meet against San Angelo Lake View and Amarillo Palo Duro, the Lady Panthers saw their velocity pick up en route to a pair of victories over the Class 5A schools at the Permian Fieldhouse.

Permian (8-2) defeated both schools in straight sets — first taking down San Angelo Lake View 25-12, 25-12, 25-11 in the afternoon before besting Amarillo Palo Duro 25-13, 25-11, 25-12 in the evening.

“We’ve talked about this season that we really want to focus getting points from numerous areas,” Permian head coach Gillian Herrera said. “I think we distributed the points fairly well amongst the team tonight.

“We served really well, setters got a few points themselves and our seven hitters played well tonight and they put balls down. It was nice to spread out the offense a little bit.”

In the Lady Panthers’ earlier match against the Maidens, they used consistency to keep a similar distance between themselves and their opponents.

Then after a near two-hour break, Permian re-took the floor to face Amarillo Palo Duro — which defeated San Angelo Lake View in four sets during the dual meet’s second of three matches.

In the first set against the Lady Dons, the Lady Panthers continued their pace from the first game.

“I think we did really good,” Permian sophomore middle and outside hitter Hanna Hetherington said about the team’s performance throughout the day. “We worked really well together and we were fixing the little mistakes.”

During the beginning of the second set against the Lady Dons, the Lady Panthers took the first eight points before pulling away for a 25-11 set victory.

The beginning of what proved to be Permian’s final set of the day didn’t start how Herrera wanted. Amarillo Palo Duro stayed close — even bringing the score to 13-10 at one point. The Lady Panthers then rattled off six straight points to keep the Lady Dons at bay and end their day on a high note.

“We were really intense today,” Permian senior setter Karissa Cortez said. “We came ready to play. It helped our momentum during the game, like it helped us keep our pace up throughout every game from first set to last set.
“You always want to win, but it feels a lot better to win in three sets than it does in five.”

Permian returns to action this weekend in the Nita Vannoy Volleyball Tournament in San Angelo. It’ll be another chance for the Lady Panthers to improve their game.

“It was a little bit faster speed than we’ve seen but were still going to have to speed up as the season goes on as we will continue to play good teams,” Herrera said about what she’ll take from the pair of wins.

Herrera knows however that her team will have to increase its speed and step up its game a few more notches before district play starts on September 8.

“Monahans really helped us. It was a lot more competition than we’ve seen in the summer so it really helped us just get used to the varsity level of play again and the faster pace,” Cortez said. “These games did the exact same thing. Each game we get faster and faster and that’s what we’re hoping to do in San Angelo too.”
