St. Mike’s knocks off Los Alamos
It was the kind of beginning to the 2018 volleyball season a contender wanted. The St. Michael’s Lady Horsemen jumped out to a hot start in their nondistrict match against Los Alamos on Tuesday night, rolling to a 25-12, 25-19, 22-25, 25-14 win in Perez-Shelley Gymnasium.
Los Alamos came off a Saturday sweep of Bloomfield, but looked like it was coming off a long road trip as St. Michael’s jumped out to an 8-0 lead that grew to 12-3 in Game 1. Even though the Lady Horsemen have eight returning seniors, junior outside hitter Molly Maestas showed she is yet another offensive weapon. She had a half-dozen kills and kept the Lady Hilltoppers’ defense off balance.
“Molly played great tonight,” St. Michael’s head coach Valerie Sandoval said. “I am so proud of her. A lot of teams don’t think of her as a threat. She’s not one of the bigs, but she has an excellent swing and is good at hitting cross-court, and she can see the lines.”
Los Alamos (1-1) rallied to take Game 3 and appeared to cut the margin to 6-4 in Game 4, but a serving rotation error sapped the Lady Hilltoppers of any moment, and St. Michael’s steadily pulled away.
Sandoval said her team focused on squashing potential rallies early over the summer.
“We have a goal on our team to not allow the other team to get three [points] in a row,” Sandoval said. “If we give up two, then we work hard to get that third point and get the side-out.”
SANTA FE PREP 3, ABQ. BOSQUE SCHOOL 2
Youth and inexperience dominate the Blue Griffins’ lineup, but they played with poise at the right time, rallying from a 6-3 deficit in Game 5 for a 25-15, 21-25, 25-18, 28-30, 15-10 win in Prep Gymnasium to open the season in style.
Blue Griffins head coach Kiran Bhakta credited the serving of Raelyn Gonzales for turning the final game around, leading a closing 12-4 run.
“Raelyn consistently served solid,” Bhakta said. “She was putting [the Lady Bobcats] in situations where they where they got out of their system. As we got the free balls, we put them away.”
Gonzales led the way with 22 kills, while senior Daisy Cunningham added 15 and sophomore sister India Cunningham added five to go with 38 assists. She handled much of the setting duties. Sophomore Comfort “Coco” Randolph had four blocks in her varsity debut, while Rafaella Marks had eight digs, two assists and a pair of aces.
SANTA FE INDIAN SCHOOL 3, MONTE DEL SOL 0
The Lady Braves controlled the match in their season opener, but first-year Lady Dragons head coach Jennifer Gutierrez felt her young team — which has mostly eighth-graders — did some good things to build upon for the rest of the season.
It was a better result than the pair of 10-0 losses to Socorro and Grants in the Socorro Cup over the weekend.
“We’ve been working on not giving up the ball, and [Tuesday] they didn’t,” Gutierrez said. “Every time they lost the ball, they fought for it and kept running the whole game.”
Adilene Chacon had a shot on goal for the Lady Dragons (0-3).