Canyon Lake’s Volleyball team will start playing for keeps this Friday at the Hawk gym, when Wimberley comes to town to start District 27-3A competition.

This year looks like a District that will be tough for every game. Literally there are not any weak links or gimme games to be had.

How can you come to this conclusion? Not one team has a losing record coming into the season openers. Each team has played over 20 games up to this point and there are a lot of comparisons you can run to see how the teams will stack up against each other.

Canyon Lake can certainly have a say in this season’s final placing in district and this team looks like a better team than last year’s club. This could be a season where the bottom three in district could of made the playoffs last season.

The ReSporter would like to give you an idea of each school and an idea of what might be in store for this round robin of games.

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Canyon Lake Volleyball team won a game they were suppose to win when they swept Burnet Bulldogs at the Hawk gym last Friday night, 25-13, 25-23, 25-21.

“A three game win is better than a five game loss,” Head Coach Nicole Creek stated. “We worked on our defense a lot this past week and it was better overall match.”

Coach Creek was expounding on how many unforced errors Canyon Lake endured in their five game loss to Llano earlier in the week.

Junior Amber Ramsey continues her impressive play at the net with 20 kills against Burnet.

Senior Marisa Ellis presence was also seen with 18 assists, 4 blocks, and 13 digs as this group of girls ready themselves for a gauntlet schedule when District 27-3A starts against Wimberley next Friday night at the Hawks gym.

“We got some momentum as we ready ourselves for next week,” Coach Creek said.
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The ReSporter was able to catch up with Volleyball Head Coach Nicole Creek

to see where her team is in relation to District 27-3A starting next week.

The ReSporter: What are your thoughts as District 27-3A starts to loom?

Coach Creek: “We need to figure out how to combine a great offensive game with a solid defensive game and we might be, ok. Our offense was the best it looked all season last night (game with Llano) but we could not produce defensively and made too many errors. In game four last night Llano only earned eight of their 25 points. We made 17 errors to give them the game.”

The ReSporter: Have you settled in on your substitution patterns and rotations?

Coach Creek: “I like our lineup right now…but I am always willing to change it if a change is needed. I want the girls to be comfortable playing with each other at the same time.”

The ReSporter: District will be the toughest since I have covered Volleyball, in other words, you could have one of your best teams and still not make the playoffs.
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Canyon Lake Volleyball team sent Lytle off the plank with a resounding three game sweep in the Varsity game as well as two, two game sweeps in the Freshman and Junior Varsity game.

The Freshman girls spotted the Pirates a 6-1 lead to start the first game and then only gave up three more points for the game as only five girls were called on to serve.

Caitlin Mabry was the player that sent the Pirates in a tailspin with 11 serving points and six of those points being scored on aces.

In the second game Mabry kept up that pace with nine more points serving and another five aces.

“Really working hard in practice,” Mabry stated.

On whether she was tired after serving so much, “Tired? Not really.”
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Canyon Lake Volleyball team continues to play over .500 ball this season.

That is good news as Head Coach Nicole Creek has scheduled some tough teams in tournament action.

The Hawks won in Blanco last Friday night in four games and then finished the San Marcos Tournament with two losses on Saturday.

The ReSporter caught up with Coach Creek for some Coaches Corner questions.

The ReSporter: The second game against Blanco your team was behind 19-13 and then proceeded to score 12 consecutive points. Is that the best run you can remember in the short history of CL Volleyball?

Coach Creek: “Yes, in game two Halley (McKnight) served and we scored 12 points in a row! Yes that I can remember it was the best run we have had.”

The ReSporter: Amber Ramsey looks like a beast on the nets the last couple of games, what is the record for kills in a season and does she have a chance to best that record at this pace?
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Canyon Lake Volleyball (10-7) finishes a three team round robin, 1-1 in La Vernia on Tuesday night.

Their first match was a win over San Antonio McCollum in four games. A second game disappearance was the only flaw.

The Hawks did win the next two games convincingly, 25-16 and 25-19.

Senior Marisa Ellis once again had a triple double leading the team with 14 kills and contributing 14 assists and 11 digs in this battle.

Freshman Halley McKnight lead the assist count with 19 and Sophomore Hayley Melone finished with 24 digs.

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Canyon Lake did it again by coming through on the opposite bracket in Devine last Thursday and Saturday.

This was a little different from the Wimberley Tournament in that Canyon Lake at least won one game on the first day of action.

The win was also against a District 27 foe from Bandera. The first day did have a much more competitive atmosphere coming from Canyon Lake as all the games were hard fought and there was no contest that was a roll over.

Once again the Hawks ruled the second day with another three game sweep.

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Canyon Lake controlled Johnson City from the opening serve and were never behind their Eagle counterpart.

The Hawks won their last three games in Wimberley last week-end and continued on that hot streak as they continued to apply the pressure in this match up.

“We are serving more aggressively and we seem to be getting better each game,” Head Coach Nicole Creek said. “We can’t give them any thing easy.”

Last Tuesday during the opening games of this season, Canyon Lake was having a hard time getting their serves over the net, which would result in easy points for the opposition. Coach Creek seemed to be happy with how this part of the game is improving.

Twelve Aces served by the Hawks is case and point to that improvement.
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The Hawks started slow but finished with a rush by winning their final three games to salvage a Bronze Bracket Championship last weekend in Wimberley.

Tex-Fest Volleyball Tournament has been on Canyon Lake’s schedule every year and the Hawks were able to get some much needed game experience and end the tournament with a three game winning streak.

“After a tough first day we battled back to sweep all three teams we played on Saturday,” Head Coach Nicole Creek said.

Canyon Lake beat Salado, 25-23 and 25-22 on Saturday. With so many teams in tournaments, teams advance in a best of three series instead of the best of five normally during the rest of the season.

In the Salado game, Marisa Ellis lead the team with 12 kills and finished second scoring 14 assists. Ellis has taken on a more dominant role in the attacking part of her game as this season starts in it’s infancy.

Freshman Halley McKnight has shown enough so far this season to suggest there will be improvement as she also had 15 assists, leading the Hawks.

Two other newcomers, Junior transfer Trena Lorett and Sophomore Hayley Malone finished one and two with seven and six digs in the game.
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The Hawks started their new year with a split in a three team round robin last Tuesday night at the Canyon Lake gymnasium.

Both games were five game sets that left the exhaustive fans feeling good about this team.

Canyon Lake beat Liberty Hill in the first match: 23-25, 17-25, 25-15, 27-25, 15-5.

The first two games would be games that Coach Nicole Creek could use for instructing future team how not to play.

“First game jitters,” Head Coach Creek said. “We had great serving and clutch hitting to end this game.”

The second game of the set, had only three points scored that was not a result of Liberty Hill losing the serve. The hole dug by the Hawks was too deep to see any light to climb out of.

Canyon Lake had their first lead starting the third game going ahead 1-0. Marisa Ellis was the server when CL actually had a rally of five points that gave the Hawks a six point lead of 14-8.
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