Elkettes win in near flawless match
Near perfection begins with the serve at Pojoaque Valley.
The Elkettes’ success depends greatly on almost flawless execution of every serve, and they were almost perfect in Tuesday night’s District 2-4A volleyball match at Moriarty. They missed just two of 71 serving opportunities, and it led to a dominating 25-12, 25-15, 25-12 sweep of the Lady Pintos to improve to 8-1 in the district.
That sets up a winner-take-all match with Los Alamos on Thursday at home. The winner gets the regular-season 2-4A title and becomes the host for the tournament championship next week.
Joe Rodriguez, first-year Pojoaque head coach, said it will take a similarly flawless execution in the service game as well as serve-receive, for the Elkettes (17-2 overall) to secure the district title.
“I’m more of a defensive-minded coach,” Rodriguez said. “I think we had one ball hit the floor with no effort. It was one of those things where if one girl was there, another was behind her to help.”
Libero Alyssa Rodriguez had 35 digs on the defensive end and helped Pojoaque set the tone for the match when she served the Elkettes to a 10-1 lead in the opening game. Overall, Pojoaque had 54 digs.
That helped the offense get rolling, as Camille Cordova had 12 kills with just one error, while middle hitter Ashten Martinez had 10 kills with no hitting errors.
SANTA FE INDIAN SCHOOL 3, SANTA FE PREP 0
The Blue Griffins played well in spurts. It’s just that the Lady Braves played exceptionally well in a 2-3A sweep, 25-15, 25-13, 25-11, at Prep Gymnasium.
SFIS’ back row played one of its best matches of the year, said Lady Braves head coach Brian Gurule, and it kept Prep out of system for much of the match.
“I’ve got to give credit to Larissa Scott, Sydnie Pino, Anlisa Pino, Kat Brock and IvoryAnne Wright,” Gurule said. “They played really well and they didn’t make too many mistakes.”
Prep head coach Kiran Bhakta said his team’s inconsistency has been its biggest problems, but hopes it can win a few more matches to help bolster its chances for an at-large spot in the Class 3A State Tournament.
“We still have to compete and finish the season strong,” Bhakta said. “Hopefully, we can have a good showing at the district tournament.”
SFIS improved to 15-4, 6-3. Prep fell to 6-13, 3-6.
MCCURDY 3, MONTE DEL SOL 1
Once again, the Lady Dragons pushed the Lady Bobcats to four games.
But McCurdy did enough to secure a 25-14, 25-14, 23-25, 25-16 win in Memorial Gymnasium.
Emi Fukuda had a team-high seven kills for Monte del Sol (4-15, 2-3), while Jamie Lujan had 10 assists and five kills. Daisy Ortiz had 10 digs to lead the defensive effort.