{"id":47811,"date":"2021-03-23T22:10:57","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T04:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-terminates-wolverines-in-bayfield\/"},"modified":"2021-03-24T04:10:57","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T04:10:57","slug":"montezuma-cortez-terminates-wolverines-in-bayfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-terminates-wolverines-in-bayfield\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez \u2018terminates\u2019 Wolverines in Bayfield"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Montezuma-Cortez Panthers had plenty of reason to celebrate Tuesday night inside BHS Gymnasium, taking down Bayfield 3-1 in 3A Intermountain League volleyball action.<\/span>Joel Priest\/Special to the Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Montezuma-Cortez team loaded with senior talent went into Bayfield and got the better of the Wolverines on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

The Panthers raced out to a 2-0 lead after set wins of 25-23 and 25-22, as the Wolverines struggled with their serve. BHS (1-1, 0-1 3A Intermountain League) took the third set 25-21 and aimed to force a fifth, but Montezuma-Cortez prevailed 25-22 in the fourth set to win its opener.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, I couldn\u2019t be more proud of these girls,\u201d Montezuma-Cortez coach Joye McHenry said. \u201cEven more than of their skill set, of their attitudes and their support of each other and their work ethic. I could not be more proud of their effort tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

BHS head coach Terene Foutz was proud of her team\u2019s improved performance in the third and fourth sets and credited Montezuma-Cortez\u2019s play at the net.<\/p>\n

\"Bayfield&#x2019;s
Bayfield&#x2019;s Kenasea Byrd (11) attempts to force a jousted ball through the defense of Montezuma-Cortez&#x2019;s Kylie Lake (2).<\/span>Joel Priest\/Special to the Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cCortez is really good, particularly their outsides did a fabulous job of terminating balls,\u201d Foutz said. \u201cIt was a great match, a scrap the entire way. It takes a lot of maturity in battling back hard, and we are going through that process right now. The third and fourth sets were really good, and we did show a solid fight. Cortez had to earn it, and they did, so kudos to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montezuma-Cortez junior Avery Wright was a force at the net all night paired with senior Myka Glover. Senior Kylie Lake also was problematic at the net, while Grace Olsen, another senior, provided some extra punch. The attack was set up by Panthers setter Dez Boeckman, who often delivered strong passes while on the run or out of position.<\/p>\n

\"Bayfield&#x2019;s
Bayfield&#x2019;s Melissa Roberts (6) and Sage Killough (16) throw up a block against Montezuma-Cortez&#x2019;s Avery Wright (9).<\/span>Joel Priest\/Special to the Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt feels amazing,\u201d Wright said of the win. \u201cI think we\u2019ve beaten Bayfield once in my high school career, so this was amazing to come and beat them in their own home. Loved it. I\u2019ve been playing with these girls since seventh grade, when they were eighth graders, and we have such a good team group that this is going to be an amazing year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many points went to long rallies, as the liberos shined on the back line. That was Amber Wood for Montezuma-Cortez, who kept multiple rallies alive as the match went on. Melissa Roberts, who excelled in the season-opening win at Delta for Bayfield, led the Wolverines with 10 digs.<\/p>\n

Bayfield\u2019s offense was directed by Sage Killough, who had 35 assists. Annie Fusco led the team with 17 kills, while Brooke Merchant and Melissa Roberts each had nine kills. The Wolverines tallied eight team blocks.<\/p>\n

\"With
With help from teammate Annie Fusco (8), Bayfield libero Emily Nelson (5) lunges for a falling ball, hoping to prolong a rally versus Montezuma-Cortez.<\/span>Joel Priest\/Special to the Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe definitely came out aggressively toward the end; we just need to start with that, come out aggressive from the start,\u201d Merchant said. \u201cBut our serving, I definitely think we can work a lot more on that. Our hitting, for the most part, we did pretty good on that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of new players, and this was their first home game, so I feel like maybe we were a little anxious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two more road league games await Montezuma-Cortez this week with a trip Friday to Alamosa and Saturday to Centauri. BHS will make the same trips this week but in reverse order.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got four games in the next six days, so we\u2019ve got a lot of playing to do,\u201d McHenry said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re ready. We\u2019ve been waiting since June, doing open gyms \u2013 these girls want to play. I have a lot of seniors, and we\u2019re not done. We\u2019re just going to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joel Priest contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

jlivingston@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Upperclassmen lead the way at the net for M-CHS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1871,36,427,346,345],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-47811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bayfield-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-prep-sports","tag-sports","tag-volleyball"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47811","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=47811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47811"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=47811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}