Crawford takes state volleyball title in rivalry matchup with Iola

GARLAND, Texas (KBTX) - When an indiscriminate Iola volleyball fan hurled the insult, “Sit down highlighter,” at Crawford head coach Jeff Coker, there was a a familiar nature to the shout directed at the man wearing a neon yellow button down.

After all, the two programs ending a playoff collision course in Garland’s Curtis Culwell Center has become commonplace over the last decade, including last year’s Iola state win over Crawford.

Thursday, in the 2A Division II state finals, it was Crawford that got the latest laugh in the 3-2 (22-25, 25-21, 25-18, 19-25, 15-5) win over the Lady Bulldogs to claim its first state title since 2019.

Before that, Crawford’s most recent state title was in 2017 over the Lady Bulldogs. Iola took the last two meetings between the two programs in the 2020 and 2023 state finals.

For this to truly be a rivalry, the Lady Pirates had to hold up their end, Coker said.

“It felt like we’ve been on the wrong end of the stick several times and so now, for us to get a win, it just means the world,” Coker said.

Precision marked Crawford’s performance through the majority of the five-game match. Both teams combined to post 28 service aces, with 16 coming from the Lady Pirates. Crawford hit at a .144 clip with 13 of the Lady Pirates' 26 attack errors coming in the final two sets of the match.

“We played as hard as we could play,” Iola head coach Jamie McDougald said. “We knew coming in it was going to be rough. Their serves got to us a lot and when we had the chances to do things, sometimes we didn’t and they took advantage of their chances more often than we did. So, just didn’t work out.”

Crawford started the match sharp, turning serve receives into pinpoint passes for power kills. In the meantime, Iola struggled to play within their system, offering a few weak tips as easily-defended attacks.

Through that stretch, the Lady Pirates mounted an 11-2 run to take a commanding 13-5 lead in the opening frame.

The Lady Bulldogs scrapped back into the game with a 10-3 run that included five consecutive kills by freshman Shelbee McKown and closed out the come-from-behind effort 25-22.

“Our team, they’re never going to give up,” McDougald said. “I mean, down and out, but I knew they weren’t going to give up. Even when it wasn’t pretty, they hung in there and hung in there and at the end of the game they got some confidence going about them and took it to Crawford.”

The majority of Iola’s offense was fed to Shaylee McKown and Sydney Nevill, who accounted for 139 of Iola’s total 206 attacks. Nevill finished with a game-high 24 kills and a .333 hit percentage. Shaylee McKown claimed 10 kills and 10 digs.

In unison, during the postgame press conference, Crawford’s entire volleyball squad confirmed that keeping eyes on those two attackers was the entirety of the defensive plan.

Through the second, third and fifth set, Crawford’s block became a problem for Iola. Positioning in front of either Shaylee McKown or Nevill forced the Lady Bulldogs to either hit directly into the block or attempt a cross-court attack that often times flew too far out of bounds. In total, the Lady Pirates collected seven blocks in the game, but rejected far more Iola attacks.

“We’re both so good defensively, we had to be able to score,” Coker said.

It was the aces that ultimately claimed a championship for the Bulldogs. Sophomore Ella Connell rattled off three consecutive aces to start the fifth set on a 5-1 Crawford run. Senior Bre Featherston got in on the action with an ace later in the set. Crawford closed out the match on a dominant 9-1 run. Three kills in that final stretch flew off the hand of senior Hattie Hayes, who earned match most valuable player honors for a 20-kill, 20-dig night.

“I’m still very surprised, because I’m around a lot of really good volleyball players right now and I feel like most people, they just don’t look at me as a volleyball player,” Hayes, who also plays basketball and softball, said of the honor. “So, I don’t know, it’s just still crazy.”

As the match drew to a close on a Cassyn Aguirre kill, tears began to spill down the cheeks of Iola’s team. However, while still choking back emotion, Nevill was able to contemplate the impact her class had on the Lady Bulldog program and the standard held moving forward.

“We’re a really hard-working group and I think everyone stepping into that knows that and they know that they have to look up to that,” she said. “I think they know they have to have work ethic. They know they have to have the heart and the drive over anything else. They have to have that. Communication with each other and just be good people.”

It’s a standard that Crawford knows well from the years it spent playing for state against the Lady Bulldogs.

“Jamie McDougald is a hall of famer,” Coker said. “She is unbelievable with what she does. I think she’s the best coach in the state of Texas and for us to be able to win and just play the way they did, it’s just really, really special.”