{"id":16734,"date":"2025-08-29T01:23:47","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T07:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ignacio-drops-opener-3-1-to-montezuma-cortez\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:01:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:01:02","slug":"ignacio-drops-opener-3-1-to-montezuma-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ignacio-drops-opener-3-1-to-montezuma-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"Ignacio drops opener 3-1 to Montezuma-Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Montezuma-Cortez's
Montezuma-Cortez's Tessa Jackson (11) blocks a tip attempted by Ignacio's Kelly Sirios during M-CHS' four-set road win Tuesday evening inside IHS Gymnasium. (Joel Priest\/Special to the Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Montezuma-Cortez High School volleyball defeated Ignacio 3-1 on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Before the game was finalized, Ignacio libero Tarah Baker, with her right knee folded and her left fully extended seated, highlight-caliber dig of a ball blasted by Montezuma-Cortez\u2019s Tessa Jackson showed that the Volleycats were finally getting their defensive timing up to speed.<\/p>\n

The only problem was, while the \u2019Cats were hoping to push their season opener into a tiebreaking fifth set, Jackson was showing zero signs of slowing down, due in large part to senior setter Kescoleigh Boeckman\u2019s near-perfect crosscourt passing. After M-CHS\u2019 early 10-4 lead in the fourth set crumbled, and hosting IHS built up a 17-13 lead, there was little question to whom the Panthers would turn after IHS briefly regained a 19-17 advantage.<\/p>\n

First, the junior hammered a kill through the block of Ignacio six-footer Alleah Neil, then ripped another off an Ignacio block near the antenna to retie the score at 19-all. M-CHS then gained the upper hand at 20-19, and after IHS head coach Jennifer Seibel used her first timeout in the set, went up 21-19 when IHS junior Maliyah Martinez sent an attempted crosscourt spike wide. Boeckman then teed up another Jackson smash, and Neil, a sophomore, then lost a joust at the net to Jackson.<\/p>\n

Seibel quickly burned her second timeout, but Jackson promptly brought up match point for M-CHS with a kill off Volleycat setter Kelly Sirios\u2019 block and the visitors then secured victory via a scoring block by junior Hayden Matthias, who almost jumped higher in starting the Panthers\u2019 celebration of their second away triumph in as many outings beginning the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of early to say, being only our second match of the season, but I think they learned the dynamic of being down \u2013 what that looks like and what that next set has to look like \u2026 all of a sudden now having a close game,\u201d M-CHS head coach Danielle Waltman said, following the 25-15, 25-12, 18-25, 25-19 outcome.<\/p>\n

Able to pile up a 10-6 lead early in Set 1, Montezuma-Cortez (2-0 overall), overcame an Ignacio charge giving the \u2019Cats a 13-10 edge. After tying the score at 13-all, M-CHS gained a one-point edge via a nearside ace serve by senior Sarah Sparks and then outscored IHS 11-2 the rest of the way. Once Jackson brought up set point, 24-15, by successfully jousting Sirios, Boeckman secured the set with a serve Martinez couldn\u2019t cleanly receive, and Sirios couldn\u2019t save it out of the strings.<\/p>\n

\"Montezuma-Cortez's
Montezuma-Cortez's Siana Elliott (12), Kescoleigh Boeckman (7) and Tessa Jackson (11) were all smiles during, and especially after the Panthers' four-set road win Tuesday evening at Ignacio. (Joel Priest\/Special to the Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Martinez began Set 2 with a kill and the Panthers soon pressed Seibel into using a timeout after growing their lead to 9-2 via an ace by senior libero Keeley Clarke, a Jackson block of Martinez, and a Clarke ace of Baker.<\/p>\n

\u201cSarah\u2019s a captain for a reason, Keeley was close to being another one,\u201d Waltman said. \u201cUnfortunately we can only have two; if I could have seven I\u2019d have seven \u2013 but they know what they need to do. Sarah\u2019s always got a great serve and Keeley\u2019s incredibly smart with hers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ignacio (0-1 overall) clawed back to as close as 15-7 via a kill by junior Lainee Bradley and 16-8 via a M-CHS net violation before Sparks then held serve until 20-8.<\/p>\n

Sirios managed a clever no-look, blindside set dump clipping M-CHS\u2019 lead down to 20-10, but Jackson countered by slam-dunking an errant IHS pass and not long after, brought up set point, 24-12, with a kill. Boeckman then willed an ace through the top of the net, putting the Panthers up 2-0 in the match.<\/p>\n

Seibel, however, switched up her rotation starting Set 3, and after Baker tossed up the initial serve, and after the \u2019Cats weathered an early Jackson storm putting M-CHS up 8-4, Ignacio went on a 9-0 tear featuring a Sirios serve sequence including two no-chance aces of.<\/p>\n

Back-to-back Jackson bombs brought Montezuma-Cortez back to 19-15 and another made the score 20-16, but Ignacio reached set point first via a well-placed roll shot by junior transfer Reggi Gustafson, and extended the match into a fourth set via a confident Sirios ace.<\/p>\n

IHS saw action Thursday afternoon versus Del Norte (2-0 overall). Results weren\u2019t available at publication time. The Bobcats begin SJBL work on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. against 2A Mancos.<\/p>\n

Montezuma-Cortez, meanwhile, will play 2A Dolores at home on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Panthers, Bobcats continue seasons on Tuesday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[642,1877,1235,846,36,346,345],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-high-school-sports","tag-high-school-volleyball","tag-ignacio","tag-ignacio-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-sports","tag-volleyball"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16734","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=16734"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20362,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16734\/revisions\/20362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16734"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}