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October 18, 2001
By Jim Thomas DURANGO — Fans in Durango fondly call the gym at Durango High School the "Den of Destruction." But it was Class 4A no. 2 ranked Montezuma-Cortez and not Class 5A DHS doing much of the destructing, especially in the third game Tuesday night, Oct. 16, of the Southwestern League volleyball game. The Panthers won the final game 15-1 after winning the first 16-14 but losing the second 14-16 as two well-coached teams took to the floor. In that third game, Cortez moved out to a 6-0 lead behind the steady serving of Colette Hall and several kills by Casey Bauer and a block by Lindsay Wilson. At the same time the Demons started making mistakes. A bad set and a carry put Cortez up 8-0. A block by Bauer and a long hit gave the Panthers a 10-1 lead a few minutes later. With Hall serving again, the Panthers scored the final five straight points as the Demons self-destructed. They hit balls into the net, went under the net, and let the ball just drop. Bauer made a couple hard spikes during that span as well. "Actually, I thought it was a well-played match by both teams," MCHS head coach Lindy Mortensen commented Tuesday night. "You have to give credit to Durango. They hit the ball hard. It was a nice battle." Things got off slowly for Cortez in the opening game. With Michelle Stolzman serving, the Demons jumped out to a 0-6 lead. Tori Sparks made two nice kills for DHS. Cortez finally got on the board with a few points as it closed to 3-6. The teams then traded sideouts almost a whole serving rotation. Finally Durango scored as Stolzman made an ace. They traded several more sideouts before the finals scored thanks to double-block by Sasha Yarbrough and Wilson. Again the teams traded more sideouts. With DHS holding a 4-9 lead, the Panthers went to work. With Stefanie Allison serving, the Panthers scored the next five consecutive to tie the game at 9-9. Durango self-destructed during that stretch by hitting the ball into the net, and long or wide. The Demons got their act together and went back out front 10-12 at which point Mortensen called time-out. Cortez quickly responded with a pair of points to tie the game at 12-all. It was tied at 13 and again at 14. A kill by Bauer and a net ball by Durango gave the Panthers the game. In the second game, it was Cortez which moved out to an early lead at 3-0. Behind the serving of Danica Erickson, the Demons took a 3-4 lead. Durango increased its advantage to 3-7. Following a time-out, the Panthers took an 8-7 lead. Durango made serveral mistakes. Bauer made a block. MCHS went out front 10-7 thanks to a nice spike by Wilson. The Demons, though, were not about to go down in two straight games. They are well schooled by Robin Olliger. They rallied and pulled within 11-10. The game was tied at 12-12 and again at 13-13 and at 14-14. Two miscues by the Panthers gave the Demons the game. MCHS fans who attended the game had to be impressed with the setting of Cassie Carver. She was very steady throughout the match. She set up some nice kills by the Panthers’ two outside hitters in Bauer and Allison. "If they scored on us, then I’m never satisfied. You are always striving for perfection. But I thought the girls played very well. They decided at the start of that third game they were going out and win it," she added. The Panthers totally dominated their game against Central of Grand Junction at home on Friday, Oct. 12, by beating the Warriors 15-2, 15-7. Montezuma-Cortez High School controlled the game from the outset, according to head coach Lindy Mortensen. She reported the team passed well. In the second game, the Panthers started out slowly but soon caught fire. "We traded a lot of sideouts during our first four or five points that we scored. Finally, we pulled ahead," she said. Bauer and Allison were strong as usual from the outside. Bauer made 14 kills for the match while Allison had eight. Hall made three kills. Setter Cassie Carver is coming along well. She made 25 assists and had three aces from the service line. Fruita-Monument gave the Panthers all they could handle on Saturday afternoon, Oct. 13, in Ron Wright Memorial Gym. The Wildcats took MCHS to three games before the Panthers won 16-14, 11-15, 15-5. In the first game, Fruita came out playing hard and used its quickness to take an 8-13 lead. But it’s hard to keep a good team down. The Panthers came back, thanks to good defensive play, and eventually tied the game at 14 and then pulled ahead for good by scoring the final two points. "Fruita has a good team. We just don’t seem to match up well against them. They have great team speed. I give them a lot of credit, although I still felt like we had the better team," Mortensen remarked. While the Panthers made some good attacks, Fruita’s players managed to get a hand on their hits. The game went back and forth during the early goings but the Wildcats finally stayed out front and won. "I don’t know what happened in the third game. I guess the girls decided they could play better. Whatever, the girls came out and played very well," she said. For the match, Bauer led the way with 16 kills while Allison had 10. Hall made five blocks and Bauer four and Wilson four. Carver did serve for seven straight points during the final game. Allison and Hall both had 10 digs. A change has been made to the original volleyball schedule for MCHS. Montrose was slated to come to Cortez on Friday, Oct. 19. The Indians, instead, will play the Panthers at 2:30 (junior varsity) and 3:45 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20. Grand Junction High will still play the Panthers on Oct. 20 at 10:45 and noon in Ron Wright Memorial Gym. The 15-1 Panthers can win the regular-season Southwestern League title outright and they can close out a perfect league slate at 12-0 with wins this weekend. The District VII Volleyball Tournament will be held in Cortez Oct. 26-27. Regionals is slated for either Alamosa or Pueblo Nov. 3 with the Class 4A State Volleyball Tournament slated for the Denver Coliseum Nov. 9-10. It could come down to one match at next week’s (Oct. 27) Class 2A District III Volleyball Tournament at Telluride as far as the Blue Jays are concerned. Although Mancos High School still has one more regular-season San Juan Basin League games remaining (at Norwood this Saturday, Oct. 20), the Blue Jays are likely heading for a tie with the Bears after all said is done. Telluride is the run-away, undefeated winner for the outright league title. "It’s going to come down to us and Dolores in the first game of the tournament," MHS head coach Mona Shepherd said. "The winner of that game will head to Regionals the following week. We beat Dolores last year and went to Regionals. It doesn’t matter how we play against Telluride because they get the automatic bye into Regionals as well." The Blue Jays fell to the Miners 10-15, 6-15 this past Friday, Oct. 12, in Telluride. "We had a lot of distractions," Shepherd reported about some questionable calls, seemingly directed towards one of her starting players. "She (Katie Paxton) got rattled by the calls. I think she got called for something like six calls that she was in the net and several more for carries. Telluride knew she was rattled, too. And some other calls were made which were real discouraging." In the first game, Mancos pulled ahead of the Miners 10-9 thanks to some solid serving by Katie Rosso and strong play up front. Not only did Paxton get rattled but so did the rest of Jays. The Miners picked up some points on unforced errors. The second game Mancos jumped out 6-2 but that lead quickly faded. Shepherd pulled Katie Paxton in favor of her sister Kassi. However, on a diving play, Kassi broke her arm. That suspended play for a bit and Mancos could never quite recover. "We had some good rallies, lots of rallies. Even for the winning point, we had a long rally. They hit a ball but one of their players went into the net. It was a no-call and the match was over," she said. Blue Jay Jori Yeomans made six kills for the match. Rosso also did a nice job hitting. Lacey Morris set the ball well. Mancos clobbered Dolores County Tuesday night in the Mancos Performance Center. The Jays won 15-2, 15-0 in match which was over in about 25 minutes. It was senior night for the Jays who have eight — Jolene Thomas, Katie Paxton, Russell, Morris, Rosso, Amy Smith, Cassie Coppinger, and Angela Hall — this year. "They were excited and were emotional," Shepherd said. "On the good side is that we did not miss a serve in the first game and we only missed two in the second. I got good middle play from Rachel and Katie (Paxton). In the second game, I put in Jolene, Cassie and Amy and they did a great job." |
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Copyright © 2001 the Cortez
Journal. All rights reserved. |
