It would’ve been easy for the Montezuma-Cortez volleyball team to play timid against the Bayfield Wolverines.
It would’ve been understandable as well.
Bayfield was ranked No. 7 in the state in CHSAANow’s latest ranking, and power hitters like Maddi Foutz and Jade Pascale scattered violent spikes across the floor on Tuesday in Cortez.
They had their fair share of impressive kills en route to a 3-0 sweep (25-17, 25-19, 25-18), but the Lady Panthers didn’t roll over.
“Our plan was to attack and go at them,” said M-CHS head coach Dave Robinson. “They are a great team. They really are. But I feel like when we decided mentally to play with them, we were playing with them. But then we would lose our focus, we’d lose a pass or what have you and it would cost us a little bit.”
Danielle McDonald and Aryelle Wright challenged the Wolverines at the net to come up with blocks and kills for M-CHS, and Rylee Lindsley and Skylar Robinson dove to the floor to dig out balls.
And then there was Tyra Pinnecoose, who showed off a difficult-to-return serve to tally four aces.
“It’s called a float serve,” Robinson explained. “It’s like a knuckleball in baseball. The ball floats a different way each time, so if she aims middle of the court it doesn’t necessarily mean its going to stay in the middle of the court. That’s one of the hardest serves to try to do.”
The Panthers were swept by the Wolverines earlier this season at the Bayfield tri meet. And while Robinson said he actually thought his team played better against them in the first meeting, he still saw positives the second go-round.
“They didn’t let balls die, as a team,” he said. “Which is really our focus right now. It’s not worrying about the individual, it’s worrying about the team. And the girls that are out on the court, I truly believe [they] believe that. We were working as a group of six.”
Now 6-12 on the year and 2-5 in the Intermountain League, the Lady Panthers will host Pagosa Springs (13-2, 6-1 IML) and Alamosa (12-5, 5-2 (IML) on Saturday for a tri meet before finishing out the regular season at Durango (7-7, 3-2 Southwestern League) on Tuesday.