<\/p>\n
A handful of Shiprock Northwest Falcons players turned their heads to watch as the Mancos Blue Jays took the court to warm up before Tuesday evening\u2019s volleyball match.<\/p>\n
Then \u2013 as the Blue Jays went down the line practicing spikes \u2013 their eyes widened.<\/p>\n
The Mancos girls went through their routine, setting each other up to slam the ball onto the empty court across the net.<\/p>\n
Each player took a turn thumping the ball into the hardwood.<\/p>\n
Thump. Thump. Thump.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to be really versatile,\u201d said head coach Brittany Lang. \u201cTo be able to set middle and set outside. That\u2019s our goal \u2013 everyone is a hitter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays continued to share the ball during their 3-1 win over the Falcons, taking games one, three and four (25-19, 25-22, 25-13), and only dropping game two 24-26 after giving up a 19-15 lead.<\/p>\n
In the fourth and final game, junior Nicole Hess and senior Taryn Gordanier put together a string of spikes to jump out to a big lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve worked a lot on those back row attacks where you see Nicole jumping from the back row and hitting,\u201d Lang said.<\/p>\n
And, even after moving to a new position, Gordanier seemed comfortable.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a middle blocker for the last three years, but now she\u2019s moved to the outside,\u201d Lang said. \u201cSo I think with more reps will come more consistency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior Jessica Gutierrez roamed the court throughout the match, seeking out opportunities to set her teammates up for big hits.<\/p>\n
Tayler Power-Bahr, Anna Cox and Morgan Rose also got in on the action, with Rose using her height and leaping ability to block Falcon returns.<\/p>\n
As for senior Hannah Wallace \u2013 Lang says \u2013 something has clicked.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s getting it,\u201d Lang continued. \u201cShe reads really well, and she\u2019s definitely the fastest. She\u2019s playing well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays (1-1) will travel to Newcomb, NM on Friday, September 11th to take on the Skyhawks (5-0) at 4:00 p.m.<\/p>\n
Heading into the match, Lang wants to improve the team\u2019s speed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just need to be faster in transition,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to be able to transition off the net and move forward to get the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Volleyball team defeats Shiprock Northwest 3-1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6313],"tags":[83],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-109695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports-2","tag-mancos"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109695","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=109695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109695"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=109695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}