It was only fitting that setter Miquela Martinez tipped home the winning point for St. Michael’s to break a 16-year championship drought.
The senior had been fooling the Sandia Prep defense all afternoon with her crafty, unsuspecting dump shots and surprise attacks on a day where the Lady Horsemen (23-2) toppled the three-time defending state champions 3-1 (25-21, 19-25, 25-13, 25-17) Nov. 17 in the Class 3A final at the Santa Ana Star Center.
“That’s something that I always like to do,” Martinez said with a laugh. “I need to keep the other team on their toes, especially when I’m in the front row with only two hitters.”
Martinez tallied 38 assists to go along with eight kills, plus a team-leading 18 digs. But, the performance of the day belonged to the defense, who put forth a near flawless effort.
With their digging on point, the Lady Horsemen transitioned to offense smoothly on a consistent basis and Martinez was spoiled with easy set opportunities to her big hitters in Lily Barker and Mikayla Bohlman.
“We’ve worked so hard on defense this year and once our defense is there, our offense just has its place,” St. Michael’s head coach Valerie Sandoval said. “We work on defense, defense, defense, and sometimes the girls are like, ‘Defense again?’ But, it only helped us come out with the win.”
After splitting the opening two games, the Lady Horsemen came out charging in the third set, as they built upon an early 7-1 lead, eventually going ahead 18-8 after another dump shot by Martinez.
To finish the set off, Barker came through with one of her team-leading 15 kills and then followed that with an aggressive serve that ended in a net violation for Sandia Prep.
“Our serving was amazing tonight,” Sandoval said. “It got them out of system and they weren’t able to set up their hitters a lot, which was all part of the plan.”
Lady Horsemen libero Darian Ortiz lived up to the theme of strong serving by recorded two consecutive aces (five total) to give St. Michael’s an 11-6 lead and some breathing room in the fourth set after Sandia Prep looked capable of scrapping to extend the match.
The Lady Sundevils would battle back within 17-13, but a net violation by Juliana Tourville started what would become a 5-1 scoring run by St. Michael’s and the 22-14 lead reached would not be surrendered.
Sandia Prep had eliminated the Lady Horsemen in the 2017 semifinals, but Martinez said the win was special because of how far the senior class has come. The group, has increased their win total each season since 2015.
“There’s eight of us seniors and to finish it off with a season like this is just the cherry on top,” Martinez said. “We got the No. 1 seed, so everyone was expecting us to perform. We had to keep all the rumors and whispers behind us and pretend to be the hunters instead of the hunted.”
Class 5A
La Cueva over Sandia, 3-0 (30-28, 25-15, 25-23): The Lady Bears capped of their perfect season at 22-0 to claim the second championship in school history. It was the third matchup of the season with Sandia and the Lady Bears lost just one game in all those matchups.
Class 4A
Los Lunas over Goddard, 3-2 (16-25, 25-13, 12-25, 25-16, 15-13): There was no shame for Pojoaque after seeing the ninth-seeded Lady Tigers repeat as state champions. Los Lunas had to do to so by first squeaking past the Elkettes in a five-set quarterfinals matchup before they swept Santa Teresa in the semifinals.
Class 1A
Logan over Melrose, 3-2 (23-25, 25-20, 25-13, 21-25, 16-14): This battle, in the opening match of the final day, featured a rare occasion of two teams who were hoping to call themselves back-to-back champions. Logan was the winner in 2A last season and Melrose had done so in 1A.