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By David Vickers
An Indian victory was there for the taking. But the Lewis-Palmer Rangers volleyball team managed to elude defeat and frustrate the Cheyenne Mountain Indian girls last Thursday in the regular season finale for both teams. Cheyenne Mountain lost 15-12, 3-15, 14-16, to the Rangers, who are ranked No. 1 in the state. The 17-1 Rangers, defending state champions in Class 4A, have lost only to Doherty, the No. 2-ranked Class 5A team. Cheyenne Mountain heads into the state playoffs this week with a solid 15-4 record overall. The Indians were 10-1 in league. Lewis-Palmer was 11-0. That one-game advantage means Lewis-Palmer gets to host a district tournament, whereas the Indians must travel to Brighton this coming weekend and win there to advance to the state tournament in Denver. Besides Brighton and Cheyenne Mountain, teams in the qualifying district tournament are Thomas Jefferson, Sterling, Berthoud, Aurora Hinkley, Mullen, Liberty, Englewood, and Harrison. Three teams will qualify at Brighton to move on to the regional matchups, which will determine who plays at the Class 4A State Volleyball Tournament on Nov. 8-9 at Denver Coliseum. Despite the loss, the Indian girls demonstrated formidable skills, especially in the decisive third game, where they roared back from a 6-0 deficit to tie the game at 11-11, and eventually take the lead 13-12. The Indians used good defense against the Rangers' one-two punch of Amy Bladow and Angela Wiggins. While Cheyenne Mountain was concentrating on stopping those two, Stephanie LaBand scored three points in their initial burst. |
But then, behind a deft Emily Engle
serve and a couple of Jessica Harrington spikes, the Indians started to catch
fire. Alyssa O'Brien, Holly Benson and Marign McCarthy got three consecutive
points, two off blocks, to cut the Rangers' lead to 11-7. After the Rangers
surrendered another two points, Harrington nailed a spike from the backcourt
to accomplish a complete momentum swing. McCarthy tied the game with a spike
of her own.
Lewis-Palmer forced a mistake by the Indians to take a 12-11 lead, but Cheyenne Mountain tied it again on an ace by Harrington. The Indians took the lead on a kill by O'Brien after the ball had bounced off the face of Ranger Justine McMurray. Just as it seemed the Indians would get their long-awaited win, Wiggins took over the match. She spiked to get the serve back, spiked to tie the game and spiked another time to give the Rangers a 14-13 lead. After she spiked another ball long to give the Indians their 14th point, Wiggins got another kill to give Lewis-Palmer a 15-14 lead. McMurray scored match point with a soft spike that Indian blockers couldn't time, letting the ball settle on the hardwood at mid-court. Coach Sherri Helman was disappointed but proud of her team for winning the first game and forcing the Rangers to the brink in the third game. "Unfortunately, we came out flat in the second game," Helman said. "They scored a bunch of points in a row and it put us back on our heels. "Losing the second game made coming back in the third game difficult, but I'm proud of the way the girls responded," she added. |
During a time out, down 6-0 in the
third game, Helman said she told her team they had worked hard, deserved
to win and only needed to believe in themselves. The pep talk apparently worked.
Lewis-Palmer coach Susan Odenbaugh said she noticed a difference. "They started to play phenomenal defense," Odenbaugh said of the Indians. "We couldn't put anything away for a while." Odenbaugh said she was confident that her team could come back after the first-game loss. The Rangers were feeling good as the third game began, but after surrendering the lead, Odenbaugh said she had to remind her team to get aggressive at the net, relax and start hitting the ball, instead of tipping it. The Indians' defensive prowess showed in the statistics. A total of 70 digs were recorded for the three games. Harrington and O'Brien led with 20 and 18, respectively, Engle had 10, McCarthy had 6, and Benson and Tiegen Bierley had five each, while Dawn Higginbotham recorded four digs and Haley Martin had a pair. In the kills category, Harrington led with 10, followed by O'Brien with eight and McCarthy with seven. |