Playing against the Flemming Eagles at the Denver Coliseum on Nov. 9, the Bulldogs dropped a competitive three-set contest, falling 25-18, 26-24, 25-17. With the loss, Dove Creek was eliminated from the state tournament.<\/p>\n
Looking somewhat flat to begin their biggest match of the year, the Bulldogs had difficulty matching Flemming\u2019s intensity early on, falling 25-18.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight off the bat, Shelbie (Knuckles) came down on a Flemming players\u2019 foot and sprained her ankle,\u201d said Bulldogs\u2019 head coach Scott Knuckles. \u201cWe still got some hitting from some of the other girls, but they had a good middle that we couldn\u2019t figure out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beginning the second set with renewed focus, the Bulldogs pulled ahead 9-8 after a block by Corissa Guynesonly to see their slim lead dissipate after several blocks by Flemming players.<\/p>\n
After multiple back-and-forth points that featured solid hitting by both teams, the Bulldogs pulled ahead 24-23 on a kill by Corissa Guynes, but were unable to close things out, falling 26-24.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a few calls that didn\u2019t go our way,\u201d said Scott Knuckles. \u201cNot to take anything away from (Flemming) though, we should have finished it ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playing with their backs against the wall in the third set, the Bulldogs hung tough, pulling to within one point at 15-16 on a block by Fury.<\/p>\n
At that point, Flemming would lock down however, sending multiple hard spikes into the Bulldogs\u2019 court in route to a 25-17 third set victory.<\/p>\n
Clearly shaken by their first defeat of the season, Bulldogs players congregated near their locker room, hugged and shed tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really proud of my team,\u201d said Bulldogs\u2019 senior Madison Young. \u201cI\u2019ll always remember playing with all of my friends. Our team played so well. We\u2019ve been together since fourth grade.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a really close team,\u201d added Bulldogs senior Shelbie Knuckles. \u201cThat\u2019s why we came so far. We play together. Even though we lost, we\u2019re not mad at each other, and we know that we gave it everything that we had.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, everything the Bulldogs had was not quite good enough to win the state title, but the team can be proud of a highly successful season in which it finished with a 26-1 record.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt says a lot about their character and their ability to be great athletes,\u201d said Scott Knuckles. \u201cI\u2019m proud of the entire group.\u201d<\/p>\n
THIS STORY WAS REPORTED LIVE ONLINE<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s action was reported on Twitter @cortezjournal and @imac_34. Updates also appeared on the Cortez Journal\u2019s Facebook page.<\/p>\n
A video of the Bulldogs\u2019 victory is available at www.cortezjournal.com.<\/p>\n
Follow high school sports in the Four Corners area on Twitter at @cortezjournal and @imac_34 as well as the Cortez Journal\u2019s Facebook page at www.facebook.com\/CortezJournal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Playing against the Flemming Eagles at the Denver Coliseum on Nov. 9, the Bulldogs dropped a competitive three-set contest, falling 25-18, 26-24, 25-17. With the loss, Dove Creek was eliminated from the state tournament. Looking somewhat flat to begin their biggest match of the year, the Bulldogs had difficulty matching Flemming\u2019s intensity early on, falling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,861],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-123224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-high-schools"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123224","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=123224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123224"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=123224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}