BRAZORIA — Anytime Columbia and Sweeny meet, regardless of the sport, there's extra incentive to win. However, Tuesday's collision also offered a potential shakeup of the District 29-4A volleyball standings. Columbia entered 3-2, while Sweeny saw its 16-game district winning streak snapped Friday against El Campo, dropping to 4-1.
With a win, the Lady ’Necks would leapfrog the Lady Dogs and create further distance between themselves and the other teams vying for playoff spots. Instead, Sweeny bounced back from Friday's loss to take down its longtime rival in four sets, 25-16, 22-25, 25-16, 25-15, Tuesday at West Brazos Junior High. "This is a big rivalry team, and the thought process was that we had to get a win early in the season rather than fight back later and rely on some kind of wild card to take place," Columbia head coach Alyssa Laker said.
The Lady 'Necks fall to 3-3 and will play Brazosport (2-3) on Friday in a pivotal matchup. For Sweeny's first-year coach, Cheyanne Forshee, Tuesday was the first time she had experienced the Battle of the Bernard rivalry, although she preferred to keep it from becoming bigger than the game. "They talked about it all week, and really they've been talking about it for weeks, so I'm like y'all, we do have other opponents," Forshee said.
"Sometimes if you focus on just one (game), it takes over, so we focused on what we needed to do every step of the way and that broke the tension of what we were coming into." Sweeny's step-by-step.
