[email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\nLast year produced one of the best seasons in program history for Plano East\u2019s volleyball team.<\/p>\n
The Lady Panthers won 31 matches and reached its first regional final since 2008.<\/p>\n
However, the Lady Panthers entered this season facing the challenge of replacing several key players lost to graduation.<\/p>\n
Two of the biggest departures came on offense, where Plano East had to replace a combined 1,024 kills from back-to-back District 6-6A MVP Simone Heard and Mari Sias. The Lady Panthers also needed two new setters following the departures of Emma Reeves and Megan Nguyen.<\/p>\n
Despite those losses, Plano East hasn\u2019t missed a beat.<\/p>\n
The Lady Panthers recorded their fifth consecutive winning season under head coach Sarah Perez and are headed to the playoffs for the fourth straight year.<\/p>\n
Plano East capped a 29-10 regular season with a dominant 25-14, 25-6, 25-11 sweep of Berkner on Friday, finishing 11-3 in district play in its first season in District 7-6A.<\/p>\n
Sophomore Anna Lukas led a balanced offensive attack with 10 kills and also distributed 12 assists. Senior libero Dakota Huynh added 16 digs.<\/p>\n
The Lady Panthers earned District 7-6A\u2019s No. 1 Class 6A Division I playoff seed.<\/p>\n
Plano East is scheduled to open the postseason tonight at 6:30 p.m. against South Grand Prairie at Thomas Jefferson High School. The Lady Panthers are 1-0 this season against the Lady Warriors, having earned a 25-16, 25-18 win during Plano East\u2019s second match of the season on Aug. 13. The winner of tonight\u2019s match draws the Hebron-McKinney Boyd winner in the area round next week. <\/p>\n
Stay informed \u2014 subscribe to\u00a0Murphy Monitor<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plano East freshman Ava Nzegwu jumps in the air for a hitting attempt against Plano West on Oct.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-480386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}