Paris Herrman has sensed something special with Tompkins all season.

She knew with the amount of experience and talent in this group they could contend for anything they put their mind to.

“We’ve all been playing together since we were like 14 or 15 years old and now all of us are juniors or are about to graduate,” Herrman said. “Because of that there’s just so much chemistry and we all know and trust each other. That’s helped so much on the court and it’s made us successful.”

That chemistry has showed for Tompkins as the Falcons have started District 19-6A play with seven straight wins, dropping only two sets in those seven games.

The most recent win may have been the important one of the season so far, as the Falcons swept Cinco Ranch; 25-23, 25-16, 25-15, on Tuesday at the Cinco Ranch gym to remain alone in first place in district and one game up on Katy for the district lead.

“This is huge to get this win,” Herrman said. “We had a big talk about keeping our record and how badly we wanted to keep this going before the game. We knew this was going to be a big game and we were ready.”

Tompkins was able to take control of the set early, but Cinco Ranch had an answer, as the Cougars came back from a 20-13 deficit to make it 24-23 late in the first set. But Tompkins called timeout and settled down, taking the next point to clinch the set.

“The timeout just let the team take a breath and we just talked about what play we were going to run,” said Tompkins head coach Allison Merrell. “We talked about executing on that play and visualized it so everyone knew what they were going to do, then they went out and did it.”

Winning the first set was a turning for Tompkins as they never let Cinco Ranch get close again.

“We knew that we wanted to keep our record,” said junior setter Presley Powell. “With this huge crowd here we wanted to show up and stay strong, and we were able to do that.”

Tompkins controlled the entire second set and although the Cougars came out with a fast start in the third set, the Falcons rebounded again to easily take the win and give Cinco Ranch its third loss in district play.

“Once we got our serve receive down it became a lot easier,” Herrman said. “It put us in a good position and we were able to run our offense and there were just no limits from there.”

The win moved Tompkins one step closer to its ultimate, goal, which is winning the district championship. But the team isn’t looking too far ahead.

“We are just taking things one by one and only looking at the next opponent. You can oly look at the next opponent and can’t get caught looking past that.”

The next opponent for Tompkins is Katy, which holds a 6-1 record in district play. The Tigers hold a 6-1 record in district play, with their sole loss coming to Tompkins. The team’s will play 5:30 Friday at Tompkins and the Falcons are shifting their focus to that important match.

“We haven’t even spoken about Friday,” Merrell said. “That was one of the things that I wanted to make sure that we focused on today, was taking care of today and then tomorrow we will start talking and focusing on that match. We just have to keep being students of the game and then practice hard, not going through the motions but practicing the gameplan and doing it well.”

Tompkins 3, Cinco Ranch 0

Tompkins: 25, 25, 25

Cinco: 23, 16, 15

Highlights: (T) Brooke Merrell 3 aces, 6 digs; Cindy Tchouangwa 13 kills, 14 digs; Erica Dellesky, 2 aces, 16 digs, 22 assists; Kristen Saba, 2 kills, 1 dig; Madison Danganan 4 digs; Natassa Baptiste 3 kills, 2 blocks, 1 dig; Paris Herrman 19 kills, 1 ace, 1 block, 17 digs; Presley Powell 5 digs, 14 assists; Skylar Skrabanek 3 kills, 3 digs; Tendai Titley 5 kills, 1 ace, 14 digs, 6 assists; Records: Tompkins 27-5, 7-0; Cinco Rnach: 14-16, 4-3