In her 19 years in charge of one of the state’s best programs, Houston volleyball coach Becky Pendleton has watched — and re-watched — plenty of matches. None more so than last year’s loss to Brentwood in the Class AAA state final.

In that one, the Mustangs came as close as they ever have to winning their elusive first state title, battling the 15-time champions on even terms before falling in four sets.

“Oh my gosh,” said Pendleton, the Shelby-Metro area’s longest-tenured coach. “I don’t know if I’ve ever watched a game so many times on film. Way too many times, I can’t even count. To know the little things we could have done different ... when I left that game, I was not upset with my team. I felt like we all gave 110 percent. We left it on the court.

“There are things we can learn from it and it also left an emptiness for some of these girls. They just want to be there again. OK, we were there; now we need to go there again. I do think I have a good enough team to get there, but you can’t overlook anything before that.”

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Thanks to a combination of high volleyball IQs, good team chemistry, an all-star cast of assistant coaches and plenty of talent, it’s unlikely Houston will overlook much as it attempts to reach Murfreesboro for the 10th consecutive year. There will be bumps — witness last week’s loss to arch rival Collierville — but it will be a major surprise if Houston isn’t in the final eight when the tournament begins in about a month.

As for playing on the final day this year? That remains to be seen. If it doesn’t, it won’t be for a lack of confidence.

“We’re focused and we’re coming for the championship this year,” senior outside hitter Kennedy Shaw said. “We have a lot of competitiveness on this team. Our blocking (against Brentwood) could have been a lot stronger, as well as our defense ... just fix some of the little kinks. I think we’re on the right track.”

Shaw is one of two three-year starters who Pendleton can put on the court, along with setter Brooke Grant. And the coach’s daughter, Lexi, is about as experienced as a sophomore can be, having grown up in gyms while watching her mom build the Houston program.

As players, they’re all very good. Knowledge of the game, however, is what sets them apart.

“To have three people on the court at all times be able to know what’s going on, that really does help,” Becky Pendleton said. 

“Just playing the game of volleyball for so long. This group, I actually had three players on this team that I coached on a 12-and-under team when they were in the sixth grade. They’ve been playing and playing at a high level for a long time. All 15 players on my team play club and they have since the sixth or seventh grade.”

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Club volleyball certainly has benefited junior libero Georgia Anne McCarter, who improved by leaps and bounds during the spring and who has already committed to play at Mississippi State. Junior Adison Kizer, who plays both middle and outside, has also set her sights on playing college volleyball, and Becky Pendleton said that once she made that decision, her game took off.

There’s Felicity Pratt, a sophomore who moved from California prior to the start of last season. She grew up as a beach volleyball player and has the ball-control skills and versatility needed to play on sand. Those assets have transferred well to the high school level.

The junkyard-dog mentality is supplied, perhaps not surprisingly, by Lexi Pendleton. When your parent is the coach — and a former high school volleyball star herself — you can either be pampered or pushed. Thanks to her upbringing, the 15-year-old has a well-honed competitive edge.

“My mindset is, do whatever it takes to win,” she said. “Even if I’m not playing and other people are playing, if I need to scream and build a fire for everyone else, I’ll do whatever it takes.

“You have to build your own name for yourself. You have to be the best teammate you can be to prove that you’re not just there because of your mom.”

Mom’s track record speaks for itself, but even she can’t do it alone. She has entrusted a lot of the coaching duties to her staff, which could probably win plenty of games on its own.

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Jennifer Miller, the wife of Houston basketball coach and former NBA standout Mike, played at Florida. Newcomer Kenzie Fields was a former Shelby-Metro player of the year before playing at Arkansas State. Kylie Hayes (Tennessee State) and Shelby Swink Smith (Union) played for Pendleton at Houston, and Art Fields, Kenzie’s dad, is an experienced veteran on the local scene.

As Lexi Pendleton said, putting it all together will be like putting together a puzzle. The box contains all the pieces, and there’s a clear picture of what the finished product ought to look like. Now it’s just a matter of making everything fit properly.

Of course, there’s still a lot of volleyball left to be played. But whereas Houston might not have known where the missing piece was in 2019, now it does. 

“Last year was an eye-opening moment,” said Grant, one of Houston’s captains. “As soon as we lost that match, everyone knew we could do a lot better. There’s a lot of urgency this year. We’re always early for practice (and) on days when we have practice, I’ll text the team (and ask) if everyone wants to stay 30 minutes or an hour later. Most everyone stays; no one ever resists.

“We use (last year) more like a building experience. It’s made us want to work harder.”