<\/p>\n
When Dolores High School\u2019s Jordan Elder was rotated out during the Colorado 2A state volleyball tournament, opponents took notice.<\/p>\n
And they took advantage of the 6-foot-2 senior\u2019s absence to win points and ultimately end the Bears\u2019 season during double-elimination play Nov. 14-16 at the Denver Coliseum.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe obviously wanted to win \u2026 at state, but we fought hard, and that\u2019s all we can ask for,\u201d said sophomore Erin Brown. \u201cWe grew a lot, and our team just really came together at the end of the season. This is what we wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior Madison Rodriguez agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, at the beginning of the season, when we were starting out as a new team with a lot of new players, we didn\u2019t even think we\u2019d make it this far,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Elder\u2019s absence was felt during the consolation match against Kremmling\u2019s West Grand. After a kill to bring Dolores back to 16-11 in Game 4 , Elder wasn\u2019t heard from again until a kill shot sailed out of bounds, giving West Grand a 25-17 win and sending the match to the Game 5 tiebreaker.<\/p>\n
After Mustang junior Josy Wheatley began Game 5 serving long, Elder gave the Bears a 3-2 lead with a spike. West Grand senior Emma DeSanti, however, tied it up with a push shot to the deep corner, and sophomore Erin Brown countered with a kill from Dolores\u2019 back row.<\/p>\n
After West Grand responded with three unanswered points, Dolores head coach Gina Hollen called a timeout.<\/p>\n
Unfazed, West Grand downed another ball after the restart, and a Dolores net violation increased West Grand\u2019s lead to 9-5. Back-to-back net violations and a netted attack kept the Bears in contention with the score 11-8.<\/p>\n
But after another Hollen timeout, Erin Brown hammered the ball just wide. An Elder kill brought Dolores back to 12-11, but West Grand countered with a cross-court spike off Sydney Smith.<\/p>\n
Elder netted her next swing but helped Dolores stave off match point by disposing of a West Grand over-pass for what ended up being her final prep-level put-away. Emma DeSanti finalized a 25-23, 15-25, 9-25, 25-17, 15-12 come-from-behind victory with a kill off the Bears\u2019 block.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that we were going to have a battle today, and we fought,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
Freshman Carlie McClellan called their seasonlong effort \u201ca constant push. Don\u2019t back down, give up on anything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
That attitude got the Bears off to a flying start Thursday against Fowler. The Bears took their first true lead at 9-7 and except for hiccups at 17-17 and 18-18 never lost it en route to a 25-21 win.<\/p>\n
A 9-0 run took the Grizzlies to a 25-21 victory in Game 2, and consecutive kills from 5-foot-9 sophomore Emily Flanscha put Fowler on track in Game 3 for a wire-to-wire win at 25-20.<\/p>\n
In Game 4, Fowler clung to tenuous leads before Dolores forged ahead 8-7 on an Akira Edwards ace. Elder then roofed an over-pass, and Fowler junior Ryanna Pruett pushed a tip wide, swelling the Bears\u2019 lead to 10-7.<\/p>\n
But the Region 8 champs recovered to tie at 11 and 13 when Flanscha managed a confidence-boosting block on Elder. Sophomore Tannice Wetzel then put down consecutive kills, but Elder struck back with a kill and an ace, and sophomore Ashaunee Begay scored with a block to put Dolores ahead 16-15.<\/p>\n
Fowler pulled even at 17 and 18 points before surging ahead for good at 19-18 \u2013 part of a 7-0 burst that forced a match point at 24-18.<\/p>\n
Brown kept the Bears alive with two kills, but a botched Bears tip fell into the net and awarded the 21-25, 25-21, 25-20, 25-20 verdict to Fowler.<\/p>\n
Fowler ended up 20-9 overall with wins over Dolores and Del Norte and losses to Denver Christian and Wiggins.<\/p>\n
West Grand (23-6) also broke even at state with wins over Del Norte and Dolores and losses to Limon and Simla.<\/p>\n
In the end, No. 1 Denver Christian (29-0) would win its first 2A crown by whacking Wiggins 25-13, 25-19, 25-10 and then defeating No. 2 Limon 25-14, 20-25, 25-15, 25-10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
0-2 against Fowler, West Grand<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-91632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91632","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=91632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91632"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=91632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}