Vela hasn't had much luck against McAllen recently, but that could start to change on Saturday. The Vela Sabercats will be playing in front of their home fans against the McAllen Bulldogs at 12:00 p.m. Each of these teams will be fighting to keep a win streak alive as Vela comes in on six and McAllen on three.
Vela will bounce into Saturday's match after beating McAllen Memorial, who they had gone 1-8 against in their nine prior meetings. Vela won by a set and slipped past McAllen Memorial 3-2.
Vela was staring down a 2-1 deficit headed into the fourth set, but they rallied to take the next two for the win. The match finished with set scores of 25-13, 17-25, 20-25, 25-16, 20-18.
Ava Tovar was nothing short of spectacular: she had 21 digs.
Vela was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 11 aces. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now served at least 11 aces in three consecutive games.
Meanwhile, McAllen hadn't done well against Pioneer recently (they were 2-7 in their previous nine matchups), but they didn't let the past get in their way on Tuesday. McAllen walked away with a 3-1 win over Pioneer.
McAllen was especially dominant in the fourth set. Once all was said and done, the final score wound up at 25-20, 24-26, 25-22, 25-12.
McAllen can attribute much of their success to Katelyn Vaden, who had ten digs.
Vela has been performing well recently as they've won 11 of their last 14 contests, which provided a nice bump to their 28-8 record this season. As for McAllen, they pushed their record up to 26-11 with the victory, which was their seventh straight at home.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Saturday's matchup: Vela has really dialed in their serving this season, having averaged 8.5 aces per game. However, it's not like McAllen struggles in that department as they've been averaging 6.4. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Vela suffered a grim 3-0 defeat to McAllen when the teams last played back in September. Will Vela have more luck at home instead of on the road? Come back here after the game to get an analysis of the match and other volleyball content.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
