Just looking at the first set of the game, you would think that the Sept. 7 volleyball match-up between Pojoaque Valley High School and Santa Fe Indian School would have ended with a quick three sets.
You would probably agree that Santa Fe Indian School had no business winning.
But, they did.
Pojoaque was dominant in that first set and they got off to a quick start. Thanks to some high-powered offensive play by sophomore Ashten Martinez, the taller Santa Fe Indian School front row had difficulty dealing with the Elkettes. Martinez and middle blocker Makenzie Quintana combined for a couple of blocks in the first half of the set.
At one point, Pojoaque was up 11-2 on the Lady Braves, and they carried that score differential through the first set, finishing Santa Fe Indian School off 25-15.
Then, the momentum shifted, the morale of the Elkettes faded and the Lady Braves started to dominate.
“My girls just stopped playing,” Pojoaque head coach Joseph Montoya said.
According to Montoya, the Elkettes became a bit timid and started to play more conservatively. He said that although his players tend to hit the ball with vigor in the warm-ups before a game, they often have a tendency to shy away from the attack when they get into a game scenario.
They lost two consecutive sets, the second set going to the Lady Braves by a scoreline of 25-17, and the score of the third set had a larger gap, going 25-12.
Pojoaque managed to patch themselves up midway through the fourth set, as they were losing to Santa Fe Indian School by seven points.
Two things changed for the Elkettes. First, Montoya switched the team to a 5-1 system instead of their usual 6-2.
This meant that Pojoaque had one setter instead of their typical two setter offense.
The switch left one more player available for defensive blocking and threw off the Lady Braves.
Second, in an act of desperation, Montoya subbed in sophomore Esperanza Torres, who primarily plays for the junior varsity team.
Although she is one of the younger and more inexperienced members of the squad, Torres does have one of the strongest hits on the team.
“I wanted to go down swinging,” Montoya said.
The changes worked for Pojoaque and they erased their seven-point deficit, to defeat the Lady Braves, 25-21, in the fourth set, sending the game into a 15-point fifth and final set.
But the momentum that the Elkettes picked up soon faded, as Santa Fe Indian grabbed the first five points of the set.
That lead was hard for Pojoaque to recover from and they came close to leveling the scoreline, when they came to within one point of the Lady Braves, at 12-11.
However, a Santa Fe Indian School hit touched the top of the net and rolled over onto the Elkettes’ side on the very next point.
That ball killed the energy the Pojoaque serving had built.
Santa Fe Indian School finished the set, 15-11.
At this point, the Elkettes are still figuring out how to work together, four games into the season. Montoya stressed that the team also needs to learn to be more offensive-minded and put pressure on the other team, instead of laying back on defense.