The Española Valley volleyball team defeated Santa Fe High School 25-21, 20-25, 25-16, 25-23 to remain undefeated on the season.
The Lady Sundevils impressed former coach and current Santa Fe coach Sam Estrada during the win.
“(Española’s) skill level on serve receive was right on track,” Estrada said. “On defense they were there to take what we got over the net. The trajectory on their passes was better than ours and speeds up their play. We still tend to pass too high.”
Estrada coached the Sundevils from 2001 to 2007, and several of Española’s key players were sophomores when Estrada took Española to the Class AAAA state tournament in his final season.
“(Española) should do well this year,” he said
Middle hitter Marisol Peña and outside hitter Renee Roybal were key players on the 2007 Española team and are important ingredients in this season’s Sundevil squad. Madlyn Romero was just an eighth-grader whom Estrada had promoted to the varsity near the end of the 2007 season and now is a starting outside hitter for the Sundevils.
“It was fun to see the old team, see how they’ve matured,” Estrada said. “They’re bigger, stronger.”
Española coach Damon Salazar refused to comment on the game.
Santa Fe will be seeing more of Española in the future. The Demonettes will join District 2AAAA — which will also include Española, Los Alamos, Capital and Bernalillo — for the 2010-11 season.
“There are some strong teams in that district,” Estrada said.