Fresh legs and energy were not a combination Peñasco High School volleyball coach Maxine Abeyta was used to seeing from her team all season — at least from the get-go in matches.
Nearly half of the Lady Panthers’ 13-player roster competed in cross country simultaneously with volleyball, so after the conclusion of the harrier season a week prior to the 2019 Rudy’s Real Texas Bar-B-Q State Volleyball Championships Nov. 14-16, it was time for No. 8 Peñasco to peak at the state’s biggest stage at the Santa Ana Star Center.
“They’re finally playing like I knew they could,” Abeyta said after the Lady Panthers defeated Magdalena High School on Nov. 15 to advance to the final round of the contender’s bracket and one win away from the Class 2A semifinals. “I’ve always said my team is a bunch of cross country runners and it takes us two or three games to warmup. Now we’ve been coming in strong a lot earlier and getting at it.”
If it weren’t for winning the District 5-2A tournament championship, Peñasco probably would have never received the opportunity to play under the lights at the Star Center. The Lady Panthers’ victory over Coronado High School in that match granted them the opportunity that they made the most of.
The start was a bit rocky, but Peñasco competed toe-to-toe in a 3-2 loss in the opening round to No. 8 Monte Del Sol, sending the Lady Panther’s to the contender’s bracket on day two of the tournament where they received a matchup with No. 7 Eunice High School.
Five games were a major theme for Peñasco for a majority of the tournament, and against the Lady Cardinals, Adrianna Tafoya picked up two big kills in the latter part of game 5, scoring the 13th and 15th points to send Peñasco onward to face No. 11 Magdalena later that night.
Against the Lady Steers, the Lady Panthers’ legs — re-energized from the lack of those long, grueling cross country practices – looked fresh as they did all tournament, as they pounded Magdalena for a clean and convincing 3-0 (25-20, 25-10, 25-13) sweep.
Peñasco led by as many as 17-6 in game 2, leaving no doubt about if its sound performance in the match’s first game would carry over.
The two-setter combination of Carly Gonzales and Tafoya combined for 23 assists, and Gonzales and Ariana MacAuley led the attack with 11 kills apiece.
“We played with a lot of confidence and played really well as a team,” Abeyta said. “No one was getting upset with each other and I’ve told them, ‘If one makes a mistake, then everybody makes a mistake. If one person can score, then anyone can score.’ It’s a team effort.”
The win left Peñasco with one final obstacle in the contender’s bracket, needing to defeat No. 5 Mescalero Apache School to advance to the semifinals to meet No. 2 Dulce High School.
The Lady Panthers played with even more energy to start the 8 a.m. match than they had at 6:30 p.m. the night prior against Magdalena, but after snagging a 2-0 lead in the match, the Lady Chiefs rallied for a 3-2 (13-25, 22-25, 25-17, 25-20, 15-10) win to stun Peñasco and send them packing.
“Peñasco came out with a lot of confidence and they were really athletic,” Mescalero head coach Alice Velasquez said. “We had to work a little harder and once we started leaning on each other, we did a lot better job with teamwork. I knew if we got to a fifth game an got ahead, we were going to surge because this was not our first fifth game.”
The win improved the Lady Chiefs to 4-1 up to that point of the season in matches going the distance. As the match against Peñasco progressed, the Lady Panther’s big swings from the likes of Gonzales, MacAuley and Tafoya started to become defended by the Lady Chiefs with more consistency.
The defensive spark by Mescalero’s back row turned into offensive opportunities for Fallon Velasquez, Samantha Kazhe and Amelia Fatty. They began to find the open middle of the court over and over as the Lady Panthers became more flat-footed and began to wear down.
The trio accounted for seven kills in game 5, and Fatty became more of a presence on the block as the match moved along. She recorded two big blocks against Gonzales in the final stanza.
Peñasco never held the lead in game 5 and the Lady Chiefs surged as coach Velasquez had predicted.
“Our back row started taking care of our setter and got her off the net, because she was running all over the place (in the first two sets),” coach Velasquez said. “We started committing earlier to the ball and made those defensive plays we needed. We needed those digs to overcome the nerves and passiveness we played with early on.”
The Lady Panthers finished the season 17-9 overall, going 2-2 over the double elimination state tournament.
“We came out and we were intense, confident and we played well,” Abeyta said about the final loss to Mescalero. “We ran out of gas and reverted to what we were doing before, and the teamwork and confidence went out the window. We did fight and we got farther than anyone expected Peñasco to, so I couldn’t be more proud of the girls.”