If Tuesday’s matchup between rivals Pojoaque Valley and Española Valley High School proved anything, it is that both squads may have an equal say in the chase for the District 2-4A crown down the road.
However, on this night, the host Elkettes (12-1) held on to defeat the Lady Sundevils for their 11th consecutive victory in a 3-2 (25-13, 25-11, 28-30, 20-25, 15-11) win that had its fair share of momentum swings.
Camille Cordova had nine kills, Adrianna Quintana had 28 assists and Pojoaque came out aggressive early to roll to a 2-0 lead behind consistent defensive stops and continuous self-inflicted wounds by Española (7-4).
The Elkettes had an astonishing 151 digs as a team in a match that featured more rallies in the latter sets — including eight players in double figures — and were led by libero Alyssa Rodriguez (34), Quintana (27) and Mikayla Padilla (18).
The Lady Sundevils likely had a near-equal amount of digs, but official stats for the squad were not available after the match.
“It was nice to play a real competitive match and get a win because we played at a higher-level,” Rodriguez said. “With Española , they’re a faster team and they’re more aggressive and they pick things up, so it was fun to compete with them.”
With their backs against the wall and the match on the line in the third and fourth set, the Lady Sundevils went from an error-prone bunch to one that started competing with more passion and precision.
They rallied for two set victories after jumping out to 9-2 leads in both the third and fourth sets. Hitters Dulce Maldonado and Chloe Fell came alive on the attack, while their serving woes turned into aggressive keys to keeping the Elkettes’ offense out of rhythm.
“I knew that was going to happen,” Pojoaque head coach Joe Rodriguez said. “If we gave them an inch, they were going to get a mile and they did. I expected that from them. They started to make their serves. They gave us six, eight points in the first two sets (from service errors). They had that mentality that we beat them the first two sets and they could come back and do the same thing.”
If that mentality carried over to the fifth set, then the Elkettes were determined on diminishing Española’s belief quickly. Alyssa Rodriguez served up three aces in the first five points of the set and Espy Torres delivered two huge kills to help Pojoaque build a 10-6 lead they would never surrender.
Espanola would climb to within 13-11 behind some huge pickups on the defensive end, but the damage had already been done. Torres added another kill to extend the lead to 14-11, then Maldonado had a hitting error off the antenna on the winning point for Pojoaque.
“They finally got into their rhythm,” Alyssa Rodriguez said about Española’s will to extend the match. “We stopped communicating and talking and got down toward the fifth game. We started to pick everyone’s heads up and push ourselves. The first two sets they weren’t swinging as hard and rolling the ball and tipping. In the last three sets, they started hitting aggressively and started getting us more down the line.”
Española head coach Damon Salazar didn’t see much of a difference in the first two sets than what he observed in the Rio Rancho Volleybash Sept. 28-29, where the Lady Sundevils were outplayed in pool and bracket play in what he called a disappointing weekend.
“I saw the same team from the weekend in the first two sets,” Salazar said. “Then we decided we weren’t going to be soft anymore. The first two sets we couldn’t find the court (hitters). They hit the ball out and I think we had 34, 35 errors in the first two (sets), minimum. When we serve (well) we’re tough, but when we don’t serve well, we aren’t very tough and we let them off the hook.”
In the following sets, Salazar was happy with the turnaround and believed the tough loss could still serve a purpose moving forward.
“Pojoaque, they play that style of ball where they push, tip and pop and if you’re not ready for it, the ball will land on you,” he said. “Hopefully our girls learned a valuable lesson. They did a lot better on defense at the end where we were out-digging them I thought at the end, but the problem that happened with us was we just lost a little bit of that aggression we had in game three, game four and game five early and then we couldn’t make up the points.”
Pojoaque had just 37 kills on 186 attempts, but they shined in the serving department by only recording a ridiculously-low four errors on 186 tries.
Both teams will get back to work on a short turnaround as Española hosts Moriarty at 6:30p.m., Thursday and Pojoaque travels to Taos High School at 6:00 p.m., Thursday.