Seven Lakes tops Fulshear in home opener

By Tyler Tyre, Sports Editor
Posted 8/17/21

“I really think we can go all the way again this year,” Schroder said. “If we keep working together and persevere then I just believe that we can. This team can face any challenge.”

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Seven Lakes tops Fulshear in home opener

Posted

It’s been a transition for Seven Lakes to start the season.

After graduating ten seniors from last year’s Class 6A state championship team, the Spartans have had to find a way to make the new pieces fit, and gel as a new team in the process.

But that hasn’t been hard for senior Emma Schroder and the rest of the Spartans, as they have formed a bond, even if it’s early in the season.

“It’s amazing with everyone here,” Schroder said. “It’s so easy with us, no one has any sort of gossip or anything like that and we all just like to have a fun time together. It’s really been perfect so far.”

Seven Lakes (7-3) has had tests early in the season, facing Clear Springs to start the season before spending last weekend in the Cy-Fair/Katy ISD tournament, where the team went 6-2.

There wasn’t any break after that for the Spartans, as they had a stiff test against Fulshear, the Texas Girls Coaches Association preseason No. 2 team in Class 5A, on Tuesday at the Seven Lakes gym.

“We wanted to come out and play the best,” said Seven Lakes head coach Amy Cataline. “We are going to have to learn and we want to see where all our weaknesses are. That lets us know and then we can chip away at it, get back in the gym and be a better team. That was our goal in the offseason and you can see it starting to happen.”

The Spartans didn’t feel any ill effects from the number of games they played last week and swept the Chargers (7-5) three sets to zero; 25-12, 25-15, 25-14.

“We we’re able to bring our A-game today because of everything we learned at the tournament,” said senior setter Casey Batenhorst. “Playing in that really let us work out all the kinks and even though we lost two games, they were good losses. We worked on different things, tried different lineups and learned what works well and what doesn’t. Because we went through that bringing our A-game was easy.”

Fulshear took an early lead but Seven Lakes responded, pulling away after the Chargers stayed with them for the first half of the first set and going up by as many as 10 on the way to a first set win.

The Spartans really started to find their groove in the second set, Seven Lakes took the lead early and comfortably took control of the match behind Batenhort’s setting, clinical attacking and a strong defense.

The Chargers would not go away quietly though, and started the third set with three straight points, but Seven Lakes had the answer, again finding a way to pull away and seal the match.

“The biggest thing we’ve been working on in practice is just speeding up our offense and getting our connections with our middle blockers better,” Batenhorst said. “We’ve been working on it in practice and we did it some tonight, but we have to keep building that chemistry.”

Batenhorst finished the match with 21 digs and 13 assists while Schroder had 14 kills and seven blocks.

Seven Lakes has three weeks until the start of the district season, and they plan to make the most of it to make sure they are prepared.

“I really think we can go all the way again this year,” Schroder said. “If we keep working together and persevere then I just believe that we can. This team can face any challenge.”

Seven Lakes 3, Fulshear 0

Seven Lakes: 25, 25, 25

Fulshear: 12, 15, 14

Highlights: (SL) Casey Batenhorst 5 kills, 2 aces, 21 digs, 13 assists; Emma Schroder 14 kills, 7 blocks, 2 digs; Mia Blum 8 kills, 10 digs; LeAnna Beaty 2 kills; Sydney Holdman 2 kills, Temitope Sam-Olibale 2 kills, 1 assist; Simone Romriell 2 aces, 4 digs, 5 assists; Sameena Burns 5 blocks; Isabella Deuel 1 block; Natalie Burton 1 block; Grace Lanier 17 digs, 7 assists; Andrea Urzua 5 digs, 4 assists;

Records: Seven Lakes 7-3; Fulshear 7-5.

Seven Lakes, Fulshear, Katy ISD, Texas, volleyball, high school volleyball, Batenhorst