Demonettes survive
Reynolds-Smith’s play in middle is key to victory
Santa Fe High will face Las Cruces today for a spot in the state volleyball semifinal.
FRIO RANCHO inally, the Santa Fe High Demonettes didn’t crack.
Ainsley Reynolds-Smith wouldn’t let them. Faced with the prospect of seeing the season end in the opening round of the Class 5A State Volleyball Tournament, Santa Fe High rallied behind its 6-foot tall junior middle hitter as she had 11 kills and four blocks in the final two games.
That helped the ninth-seeded Demonettes rally for a 23-25, 23-25, 25-17, 25-21, 15-11 win over No. 11 Hobbs in the Santa Ana Star Center on Thursday night.
Santa Fe High (17-7) plays No. 3 Las Cruces High on Friday afternoon with a slot in the evening semifinals up for grabs.
The win is the first for the program since it won the Class 4A championship match in 1996. But Santa Fe High has a tie between the two teams: Mike Thompson. He was the head coach of the Demonettes in 1996, but is an assistant on this team — or as he called himself after the win, “my job is to fill [setter Courtney Brookover’s] water bottle.”
However, it was the play of ReynoldsSmith in the middle that made all the difference. With the Demonettes holding a precarious 20-19 lead, the junior came up with a kill on a Lady Eagles overpass and a block of Mariah Jenning that upped the lead to 22-19. She finished the game with another kill off an overpass to cap the 25-21 win and force a fifth and final game.
With the teams trading points through the midpoint, Reynolds-Smith and sophomore outside hitter Laila Bernardino came on strong to finish off the Lady Eagles (14-9). Reynolds-Smith had a kill off the Hobbs block that gave the Demonettes an 11-9 lead, which was followed by Bernardino’s kill off of Saqqay Baker, which flowed into a Reynolds-Smith kill off a quick set from Brookover for 13-9.
The end came when Bernardino hammered a kill to the back line that led to a celebration at midcourt that was 22 years in the making. Reynolds-Smith admitted she didn’t have much of a voice left after almost two hours of grueling, intense volleyball.
“We knew we had nothing to lose, and we had to work hard, because they are a great team,” Reynolds-Smith said. “If we stuck together and tried our hardest, we knew we would push through.”
Santa Fe High head coach Josie Adams and her coaching staff knew the difference between past years and this year was the play in the middle. The Demonettes have had strong outside
hitters, but the coaches knew the key to competing with the rest of 5A was going to come from Reynolds-Smith and sophomore Jorja “Joey” Chambers.
“She came in right when we needed her,” Adams said. “We were riding her and a lot of other people. It’s a lot to ask our two outside hitters to carry this whole game, and we needed her.”
Reynolds-Smith knew she had to complement Bernardino and junior all-district player Salome Romp because teams often focused their defense on slow those two. She also fit in with Adams’ vision of having a varied attack that keeps opponents from drawing attention toward one hitter and giving every hitter more opportunities at facing single blockers instead of multiple ones.
“That’s been our focus the whole year, to get our middles going,” Adams said.
“If you don’t become multidimensional, then it’s easy when one of those players drops off, another team takes out that dimension,” added assistant Adam Rubel, who coaches the middle hitters. “When we have different options for different players to step in, then we become a lot tougher.”
Toughness was needed for the Demonettes, who had to shrug off the disappointment of not winning Pool D in the afternoon pool play session. After sweeping No. 4 Albuquerque Cibola, they dropped a pair of eventual pool winner Albuquerque Volcano Vista. The first game against the Lady Hawks saw Santa Fe High surrender an 18-14 lead and lose 25-23.
“We knew those two games were super tough, and we were really excited after Cibola,” Reynolds-Smith said. “We kinda underestimated Volcano Vista and they performed really well.”
But the lesson was learned: When in doubt, go big.
Reynolds-Smith did, and the Demonettes survived to see another day.