Daniela Chapa-Reyes 
Jose Rodriguez/THE RIDER
After a successful season with a 14-game winning streak, the UTRGV Volleyball Team will head to the Southland Conference tournament as shared-title champions. The team shares the title with Stephen F. Austin State University, the only team they fell to this season.
They will first face Houston Christian University Friday in The Field House at East Texas A&M University in Commerce, Texas. Head coach Todd Lowery said the team always plays well at the end.
“They gave us a lot to handle up there early in the season,” Lowery said. “We got to basically handle our side of the court. We do everything on our side at a high level that first night and, hopefully, take care of business.”
With the tournament matches being back-to-back, he said the girls are used to playing in such conditions.
“Early on, we played two or three matches in a 72-hour period,” Lowery said. “I think, for us, it is almost an advantage. This is as deep as we’ve been, so I think that’s an advantage if we can go out and play some people early on, even if it is a set. … We are very confident with people coming off the bench and, I think, over the course of three days, that’s going to happen.”
The coach said the team is going to need some depth to get through the tournament.
“This is as healthy as we’ve been going into a tournament, so it is just adrenaline at that point and I don’t see fatigue or anything like that being a problem for them,” he said.
With this being the Vaqueros’ second season in the SLC, Lowery said coming into a new league brought a lot of high expectations.
“Winning [the championship] in such a tough field means a lot,” Lowery said. “The biggest thing is just this group of girls really deserves it. I couldn’t be more proud of them and how quickly they came together, just a group [that is] about being bigger than themselves.”
He said when in the Western Athletic Conference, he felt they would “drag” the season and the conference tournament, feeling “beat up” mentally and physically.
“It is just opposite with this group,” Lowery said. “They’re flying high. What this group has done is they’ve handled adversity really well and, then, they seem to come back better.”
Junior middle blocker and Harlingen-native Julianna Bryant was voted second team all-conference. Bryant said she cried after receiving the championship.
“I made a promise to my mom that I would get her a ring before I graduated because she had me quite young; the very next year that she ended up leaving school, that team won their conference … and my mom wasn’t able to be there,” she said. “So, I made a promise. … I am going to get that ring before I leave, so I owe it all to her.”
Bryant said it speaks a lot about the team to be able to win the championship.
“A lot of people forget what really goes on behind the scenes,” she said. “It literally can be anything that no one really sees what really goes on behind closed doors. Being able to trust one another, and it is very hard for me to trust. I don’t like the idea of it but, I mean, I was able to open up and give these girls, from head to toe, everything that I got.”
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