<\/p>\n
CORTEZ \u2013 Five points from a 3-0 sweep Tuesday night after a putaway by senior Jannika Pope, Bayfield head coach Terene Foutz shouted: \u201cIt\u2019s a whole new game to five!\u201d<\/p>\n
She clearly didn\u2019t mean a fifth game in the best-of-five with Montezuma-Cortez.<\/p>\n
And she most definitely didn\u2019t intend to motivate the opposing Panthers into battling for five consecutive match-saving points, but on their home floor that\u2019s more or less what happened as five straight BHS errors helped the 3A Intermountain League fight\u2019s underdogs stay alive long enough to force a Game 4 before falling 25-15, 25-21, 24-26, 25-20.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we should have dropped that third set \u2013 that\u2019s something we can\u2019t be OK with doing,\u201d said senior setter Tymbree Florian, who recorded 23 assists offensively while providing some high-rise blocking on defense. \u201cIt was a much-needed win, but there\u2019s so much more that Bayfield can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kills by senior Lanae Dragswolf and freshman Avery Wright secured Game 3 for the home team, but the visiting Wolverines took control for good at 5-4 in the fourth. They then shot up to 12-7 via smashes by Florian and junior Mavis Edwards and maxed their advantage out at both 17-11 and 23-17. The BHS girls clinched the victory when Edwards viciously split a double-block.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything we\u2019ve learned in practice the past couple weeks, everything we\u2019ve went over, we were putting it to use and putting balls down how we should be,\u201d said Florian.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur attitude got the best of us, and we didn\u2019t play as we should have,\u201d Dragswolf said of the Cortez team.<\/p>\n
BHS knew how well M-CHS could have actually played, knowing the Panthers had stunned reigning IML champ Centauri in five \u2013 in La Jara, no less \u2013 just three days before.<\/p>\n
A failed free-ball pass gave Bayfield\u2019s Rachel Bauer the serve at 5-2, and the senior unleashed no fewer than three aces before a Dragswolf spike took the ball out of her hands with the guests up 16-3. And though Montezuma-Cortez (4-3, 2-2 IML) staved off game point three times, BHS junior Tess Phelps stuffed down libero Amber Wood\u2019s freebie offering for a 1-0 lead in the contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just what we expect out of Rachel,\u201d Florian said, of Bauer\u2019s 11-point stay behind the line. \u201cWhen she\u2019s on, she\u2019s on; she\u2019s our best server. We see that every day in practice, and we were so excited to see her finally come to her full potential in a game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Incredibly forgetting almost completely their initial performance, M-CHS pushed the pace in Game 2 and led 12-4 before the Wolverines clawed back to tie at 20-20.<\/p>\n
Panther sophomore Devon McHenry then hit long, Florian rejected senior Chloe Seaburn at the strings, and Bayfield freshman Annie Fusco crushed a kill through the middle, prompting M-CHS\u2019 Maddie Wright into taking a timeout.<\/p>\n
A netted swing put BHS up 24-20, and Bayfield (3-6, 2-2) went up two-love on a kill by senior Tessa Heydinger off a perfect cross-court Florian set.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been working hard on serve-receive passing to protect the offense, and we have been seeing progress the past couple of weeks,\u201d Foutz stated. \u201cTonight the team held on SRP, which was a breakthrough for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edwards led the way offensively with 13 kills and Pope followed with nine. Tested at times by M-CHS\u2019 underrated attack, libero Lana McKee still came up with 24 digs.<\/p>\n
\u201cDigging a hole at the beginning and constantly trying to \u2018dig\u2019 out\u2014I think that\u2019s almost kind of what they\u2019re comfortable with,\u201d Coach Wright said of her squad, tongue-in-cheek. \u201cThat\u2019s what they did, and tried to do, but Bayfield\u2019s a good team and we were unable to pull through this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bayfield lost Sept. 15 in Pagosa Springs to circuit rivals Alamosa (8-25, 13-25, 13-25) and PSHS (25-27, 24-26, 23-25).<\/p>\n
Up next, BHS takes on 5A Farmington on Thursday, Sept. 20, then BHS will host 4A Durango on Tuesday, Sept. 25, during Homecoming Week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know we can beat both teams. It\u2019s just a matter of self-confidence,\u201d Florian said. \u201cThey\u2019re home games so we\u2019ll have the \u2018advantage,\u2019 but we have to show up, like we did today. Can\u2019t get nervous, can\u2019t force errors on ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bauer, Edwards inspire needed league win<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-60433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60433","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=60433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60433"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=60433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}