The Española Valley High School volleyball team will try to ride the momentum of three consecutive sweeps in their last three matches when they head south to Roswell Sept. 21-22 for the Zia Classic Tournament.
Despite three victories over Gallup, Belen, and most recently, Sept. 13 over Bloomfield High School at home, head coach Damon Salazar wants to see drastic improvement in his Lady Sundevils (3-1) before the Zia Classic.
“We’re going to work a little more on our transition game,” he said after his team’s 3-0 (25-20, 25-23, 25-19) victory over Bloomfield. “We’re being lazy on our transition. We’re not going out fast enough outside. Our middles are only getting to 7 or 8 feet. Our rights are just getting to the 10-foot line, but we need to get to 12, 11 and 14. If we’re not at 12, 11 and 14, then we can’t really run the way we want to run our offense.”
After the Lady Sundevils committed 14 serving errors Sept. 11 against Belen, Salazar was adamant the serving had to improve, but versus Bloomfield, the lack of consistent passing caught his attention.
“Our passing was terrible today,” he said. “They were serving us deep but we’re just not doing what we’re doing in practice. When our passing is bringing our center out to the 10-foot line, then we have to go outside. Then they know what’s coming. They (Bloomfield) were athletic kids that put a great block up, but it was because of our passing.”
To the eyes of the average bystander, it would appear that Bloomfield’s front line looked superior early on in the first set as the Lady Bobcats jumped out to a 4-1 lead behind four blocks at the net on Española kill attempts.
The Lady Sundevils took back control after senior outside hitter Chloe Fell recorded two of her serving aces (seven total) to increase the lead to 16-10 in Española’s favor. They pushed the lead to nine points at 20-11 before closing out the set.
“I think we just kind of realized that their block is big and we need to do more than just hit straight into it,” Fell said. “As the game went on and once we started to see it better, then we were able to read it better.”
Serving turnaround
Española’s serving may have faltered against Belen, but it proved to be the most critical aspect of the match with Bloomfield when sets were on the line.
The Lady Sundevils committed seven serving errors and racked up a season-high 17 aces, behind Fell’s seven and Andrea Perea’s four.
The latter part of the second set featured one of the two runs that helped send Bloomfield home early.
Española built a 9-4 lead behind some big hitting by Dulce Maldonado, who lead the team along with Perea with eight kills, but found themselves down 20-16 after Bloomfield went on a 4-0 run that was started by an Izabel Sena serving error.
The Lady Bobcats increased their lead to 23-20 before Perea went on a tear, hitting three aces in the last five points, in addition to two Bloomfield hitting errors that helped Española end the set on a 5-0 run.
“The girls went up there and served aggressive,” Salazar said. “When you’re aggressive in this game, good things happen.”
More good things would happen late in the third set — but it had to wait until after Bloomfield went on a 9-1 scoring run to tie the set at 15 after trailing 14-6.
That’s when Fell took command after Salazar called a timeout to get his team regrouped.
She recorded three consecutive aces as Española went on their own 7-0 run to extend the lead to 22-15 before closing out the match.
“We were up by a lot and the score was getting close to 25 and I just wanted to end the game,” Fell said about the run of aces. “I like stopping at three (sets). I don’t want to play a fourth or fifth game, ever. So, I said, ‘I just need to focus on getting these serves and hitting the same spot because they weren’t able to pass the ball (out of that spot).’”
Still, Salazar believes his team’s 3-1 record doesn’t label the true identity of his team.
“Hey, winning is winning and last year we were losing these games, so I’m hopeful that we’re gonna play well and play to our potential,” he said. “If we don’t play to our potential once districts come around, those teams are too good. I mean we’re 3-1 and we’re not playing well.”
Libero Meranda Romero sprained her ankle Sept. 8 during the first match of the season against Aztec High School at the Piedra Vista Panther Classic, but has returned to full-strength in the last two matches.
“When she twisted her ankle the first point against Aztec, that discombobulated our whole game, Salazar said. “She may be the best libero in the state. You see her, I mean we didn’t play good at all (against Bloomfield) and she still played great.”