For the victorious team, come-from-behind wins are elating and miraculous. Yet for the losing side, these games are a gut-wrencher. Last night at the Coppell High School Arena, the Cowgirls volleyball team (20-13 overall, 5-1 District 9-6A) fell on the unfortunate side of a come-from-behind win against Richardson (22-10, 6-1) with a final score of 3-2.

The Cowgirls were firing on all cylinders in the first two sets, winning them 25-21 and 25-20. Both junior middle hitter Riley Ross and junior right side hitter Breanne Chausse led Coppell to the early 2-0 set lead, giving them lots of momentum into the third set.

“Overall I thought we passed really well,” Coppell coach Julie Green said. “Especially in a competitive match like this one, I thought it was nice that we were able to do it.”

Yet after those first two sets, that was when the momentum started to swing. After a couple of long rallies won by the Eagles and a few huge hits, the Richardson crowd kept the momentum going with a few chants and all of a sudden the set score was tied at 2-2.

With the decisive fifth set ahead of them, the Cowgirls earned a quick 5-0 lead yet squandered it away, losing the fifth set with a final score of 15-11.

“It wasn’t our best match overall,” Green said. “Even though we did win those first two sets, they weren’t our best sets either. We ended up getting a couple of lucky breaks to win the first two sets, but we have some expectations for how we want to pass and how we hit offensively and we knew it was off from the beginning.”

Senior outside hitter Grace Heaton also thought that the execution was off Tuesday night, and knows the Cowgirls can work on certain aspects to get better heading into the last few games of the regular season.

“One thing we need to work on is keeping our momentum and our overall execution on the court,” Heaton said. “Our effort was there, but we didn’t execute as much as we would have liked. We would make simple errors that would cause us to lose momentum, so we need to work on keeping the energy up no matter what happens on the court.”

The Cowgirls have three district matches left before a highly anticipated postseason awaits, a postseason that has seen success in recent years with state championships and deep playoff runs.

You can follow Joseph on Twitter at @joseph_krum.