<\/p>\n
A loss is a loss.<\/p>\n
But Mancos head volleyball coach Brittany Lang called Tuesday\u2019s loss to Norwood a good loss.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays entered the match with a 1-12 record in the San Juan Basin league, while the Mavericks came in with a 8-2 conference record.<\/p>\n
Lining up across from Norwood\u2019s 6-foot-1 power-hitter Macie Magallon, the Blue Jays could have easily packed it in.<\/p>\n
With a handful of blocks and spikes, Magallon led the Mavericks to a 25-15 win in Game 1.<\/p>\n
But then in Game 2, the Blue Jays came out fighting.<\/p>\n
And with Magallon on the bench most of the second set, Mancos senior Taryn Gordanier took over.<\/p>\n
Gordanier\u2019s first kill of the game gave the Blue Jays a 7-6 lead, and she dropped in off-speed hits and powered in another spike to extend the lead to 12-8.<\/p>\n
She had help from a Nicole Hess serve streak and a Mackenzie Benitez ace, and Jessica Gutierrez set her up for another spike to make the score 23-16 as the Blue Jays took Game 2, 25-18.<\/p>\n
Magallon and the Mavericks responded for a 25-12 win in Game 3, but the Blue Jays jumped to an early 4-0 lead in the fourth game.<\/p>\n
A string of errors helped Norwood even the score, before consecutive kills by Hess and Morgan Rose put the Blue Jays back in front, 16-15.<\/p>\n
Trailing 21-24, Hess slammed a ball just off Magallon\u2019s outstretched fingers, and Rose blocked a Norwood spike attempt to bring the Blue Jays within one, down 23-24.<\/p>\n
However, an errant serve gave the Mavericks the game-winning point to take the match 3-1.<\/p>\n
In a match that could have been over in three quick games, the Blue Jays clawed their way to a Game 2 win, and almost came away with Game 4.<\/p>\n
Lang says the team can use the match as a confidence builder heading into their pigtail match with Telluride on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust momentum, confidence, trust \u2013 all those big words,\u201d she said. \u201cWe just need to carry on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mancos plays at Telluride on Thursday at 5:30 p.m., with the winner moving on to the district tournament in Dolores on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know how Telluride plays,\u201d Lang said. \u201cWe play them a lot. They\u2019re definitely beatable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Building momentum, aiming for district tourney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[83],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-108568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-mancos"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108568"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=108568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}