With an undefeated district championship in the rearview window, Cinco Ranch has turned its attention toward the playoffs, which start early next week.

The Cougars are 33-5 overall after sweeping Taylor on Tuesday, Oct. 29, to finish District 19-6A play 12-0. The Cougars seem to be peaking at the right time; in their last six games, they have only lost one set. That came against the district’s second-place team, Katy.

Cinco Ranch clinched the district title with a 25-9, 25-10, 25-11 sweep of Morton Ranch on Oct. 22. Katy, Seven Lakes and Tompkins round out postseason qualifiers from 19-6A.

The Cougars won the district title in runaway fashion, finishing three games ahead of Katy.

“We definitely talked together as a team, and that was one thing we all agreed upon, that we should win district, so that’s what they set their goals to,” Cinco Ranch coach Danielle Wells said. “I definitely knew they were able to accomplish that.”

The team’s three captains are all seniors and four-year letterwomen: outside hitter Danyle Courtley, middle blocker Madalyn O’Brien and setter Aislan Lennon. Courtley leads the team in kills (3.9 per set) and digs (2.8 per set), O’Brien leads the team in hitting percentage (.391) and total blocks (101), and Lennon averages a team-best 6.1 assists per set.

The three said they knew this could be a good year if they kept working in practice.

“We knew that this year, if we were going to go far, this would be the year,” Courtley said.

“We went in really motivated, and we knew if we went in strong every game, we would pull off the win,” Lennon added.

Now the goal is state. Courtley said it’s been the goal since their freshman year.

“Our little goal was to win district, and now we’re moving on and taking it one game at a time,” O’Brien said.

Though the three captains are battle-tested veterans as four-year varsity players, Wells stressed that all three have improved by “leaps and bounds.” Courtley has improved her versatility, while O’Brien matured into a six-rotation player as a junior and senior.

“Freshman year, they were little babies,” Wells said, laughing. “The thing with having freshmen on varsity, as a varsity coach I still have expectations that they will be varsity players. Because they’ve had the reps and the intensity and the pressure for three years now, they know that now is the only time left to get as far as they want to get.”

The captains said they’ve also been helped by their club team, which they have also played together on year-round.

“We get to work on our individual skills and then bring it here, and it works perfectly for school,” Courtley said.

“I think us playing together and growing together really helped, especially when it came to learning one another’s tendencies,” Lennon said of club ball. “It just helped our team dynamic even more.”

Lennon said she’s tried her best to be a supportive and vocal leader from the sidelines this year. An injury has kept her sidelined since mid-September.

“I’d say my role now is cheerleader and sideline coach,” she said. “I’m just trying to help out the other setters on the team and just make sure the team is still sticking to our goals and doing what we want to do.”

Lennon hopes to come back at some point during the playoffs.

“I’m doing cardio, I just can’t lift weights,” she said. “I’m trying to stay in shape, so that when I come back I can be as good as I can.”

The three senior captains will be continuing their volleyball careers at the collegiate level—Courtley at Rice, O’Brien at Texas Tech and Lennon at St. Mary’s in San Antonio.

From last year’s playoffs, Courtley and O’Brien said they’ve tried to focus more on passing, digging and receiving.

“I think we’ve focused more on serve-receive this year, more than we have in the past, and it’s really carried over,” Courtley said. “When our passing is on, everything else kind of follows.”

“We’ve been working on being consistent together, because when we’re not consistent you can tell, and it’s a big difference,” O’Brien said. “We’re working together this year instead of just being individuals.”

Wells said the team has the talent to achieve the goal of making it to state, but it would be a matter of focusing and playing mistake-free volleyball.

“For us to continue the run in the playoffs, our consistency has to get a bit better,” she said. “We still have little moments of hitting errors, service errors, a missed pass here, we’re not in system so we’re not putting the ball away. That stuff has to get more consistent. It can; I just think they need to recognize that, and when they recognize that, they need to turn it around in that instant and not wait two or three points. Because when you get in the playoffs, you can’t wait two or three points.”