Senior Bracero leading way for UTB-TSC

The ninth-ranked University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College volleyball team is sitting in prime position to make a run at a national championship next month.

It’s a place the Scorpions know would have been next to impossible to reach without the standout play of Daianarah Bracero.

The senior setter has lit up the scoreboard and stat sheet since she’s been in a Scorpions uniform. Playing in only her second season for UTB-TSC, Bracero already has broken the assist record and is only 45 assists away from 3,000 total. Bracero set the single-match assist record in 2007 by tallying 67 against Trinity University and holds four of the top five single-game assist totals in school history.

The Scorpions (31-1,16-0) will be playing in the NAIA national women’s volleyball championships beginning Dec. 1 in Sioux City, Iowa. The team earned a first-round bye after being ranked in the top 12 in the country at season’s end.

The ranking is impressive, but Bracero and the Scorpions don’t get caught up in the hype surrounding it.

"We just worry about what we have to do, and we don’t care that much about the rankings," Bracero said. "We focus on the game, we have to play to win every game."

Bracero, the only senior on this year’s squad, will be playing in her final collegiate games at the national tournament after a long journey that started in Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico. Bracero played at Miami-Dade Community College (Fla.), a powerhouse JUCO program for her first two years of eligibility.

She and a teammate were approached by UTB-TSC to continue their career for the Scorpions, and a few months later Bracero boarded a bus headed to Brownsville.

The Scorpions are now under the reins of first-year coach Todd Lowery, previously a two-time national championship winner at National American University in South Dakota.

"(Lowery) cares about how we do in school and how comfortable we are here just as much as winning," Bracero said. "He wants us all to graduate."

The Scorpions bulldozed their way through the regular reason, losing only one match to No. 6 Georgetown College early in the year. Along with going undefeated since then, UTB-TSC hasn’t dropped a single set since September — a span of 16 matches.

It’s not clear which team UTB-TSC will play in their first match yet. No matter who the opponent the road to the national championship won’t be easy, but the preparation will be there for Bracero and the Scorpions.

"We don’t care who we play in nationals, we are practicing to beat everybody," she said.