Lady Lions open season with strong wins over Merkel, Aspermont
The Albany Lady Lions volleyball team opened the 2025 regular season with back-to-back sweeps at home Tuesday, defeating Merkel 25-22, 25-23, 25-18 and Aspermont 25-17, 25-21, 25-12.
The weekend before, Albany played scrimmages against Benjamin and Breckenridge on August 8, and Woodson on August 9. Reneau said the goal was to get on the court with the new group, especially the younger players.
“We really just wanted to get on the court, and we weren’t really worried about score,” Reneau said. “It was more just getting as many reps and as many points as we could. It was like a glorified practice, just against another team for the experience.”
Against Woodson, Albany played a different format and lost in three sets. Reneau said she wanted to see how the girls would respond to both winning and losing.
“I was curious to see how we were going to respond to that, and they responded really well,” she said.
The team showed noticeable progress between the scrimmages and the season opener.
“We made lots of improvement just in the short three days,” Reneau said. “It was good to have those scrimmages and see what we needed to work on in a game situation and fix those before we played Tuesday.”
Albany started the season with dual matches instead of a tournament, something Reneau said they began last year.
“You can play up to three tournaments, and we’ve shortened that. We’ve only entered two tournaments the last couple years. In doing that, you can play more regular season games,” she said. “So we just decided to get two quality matches in instead of going to a tournament.”
Junior Zayne Lefevre “was on fire” Tuesday, Reneau said, recording the most kills and most attempts.
“That also goes back to our passers and our setters doing a good job getting her the ball,” she said. “But Zayne is just going to be a force for us this year and a great leader.”
Reneau also praised seniors Mimi Ivy and Madi Parrott.
“Their leadership on and off the court — the team was there early, and they were two of the first ones there, just making sure that everyone is in the right mindset,” she said. “Neither one of them leave the floor. They’re six rotation players and just really solid and good leaders for us. They make the atmosphere so positive.”
Reneau said the home crowd was “great” for the opener, helped by having two teams in town and coming on the day after the community ice cream supper.
The junior varsity played Merkel’s upper JV squad, losing the first set before taking the next two.
“I was really excited because the majority of our JV team is mainly freshmen,” Reneau said. “I think that says a lot about our young girls coming up and the success that they’re showing early in the season.”
Albany will host two JV squads from Breckenridge on August 16 following a tournament cancellation, giving younger players more court time while allowing varsity returners to rest. The Lady Lions will then travel to face Eastland on August 19, a matchup Reneau described as “usually pretty tough.”
