Los Alamos unable to finish games, eliminated
Hope Christian wins five-set marathon battle
RIO RANCHO — Move over, one. You’re no longer the loneliest number.
The Los Alamos volleyball team is allowing 20 to take that spot, thank you very much.
Throughout Thursday’s Class 4A State Volleyball Tournament play in the Santa Ana Star Center, the Lady Hilltoppers had a love/hate relationship with the number that proved to be a harbinger of bad things to come. Seven times they reached 20 points in a game before their opponents, but they lost five of them.
The last two setbacks came in a crushing five-set loss to Albuquerque Hope Christian in Thursday night’s opening round. The secondseeded Lady Huskies eliminated Los Alamos with a 25-22, 21-25, 25-23, 20-25, 17-15 marathon loss on a night in which the match started 80 minutes late and ended well after 9 p.m.
Hope rallied in all three of its winning games, following a trend the Lady Hilltoppers set for themselves in pool play where they had three games in which they led 22-18, only to fall apart down the stretch and lose.
“I don’t know what it was, but it was something we couldn’t get away from all day,” Los Alamos head coach Joe Palmer said. “I don’t think it was a question of the the girls playing tight because we’ve been in those situations before.”
The struggles in closing things out in pool play dropped the ’Toppers into a brutal opening round matchup with Hope, the team with the tournament’s best overall record but one that struggled through pool play to leave the school opposite Los Alamos, the No. 5 seed.
On paper it was a solid pairing of evenly matched teams. In reality it was even better than that.
The teams exchanged one proverbial haymaker after another, the Huskies delivering the last of them when eighth
grade outside hitter Jaylee Gonzales drilled a kill through traffic on the left side to snap a 15-all tie in the fifth game, then the clinching service ace from freshman Emma Villalpando to end it.
Villalpando’s shot caught Los Alamos’ Sophia Salazar a half step out of position, and she was unable to return the ball.
It halted what was a highly entertaining match in which neither team ever broke free for more than a few prolonged runs.
“The girls are down, of course, but I told them that if your worst problem in life is losing a volleyball match, then you’re probably in pretty good shape,” Palmer said.
Asked whether he’d be back next season, Palmer said talks are ongoing. In short, he helped save a season that could have easily gone up in flames when the coaching staff who started the season and ran all the offseason practices quit in mid-September.
Palmer was coaxed out of the club ranks to keep the program going. All he did was lead the Lady Hilltoppers on a 10-1 run to finish the regular season, a run that included the District 2-4A championship and wins over Rio Rancho Cleveland, Española Valley (twice) and Pojoaque Valley (twice).
The end of the line came Thursday, thanks to the team’s inexplicable struggles late in games. It halted what had been outstanding matches by libero Kyla Sandoval and hitters Elodie Thelliez and Salazar. All three are seniors.
Los Alamos led the first game 12-4 when Thelliez fired a shot to the back row that couldn’t be returned. Hope rallied to tie it at 19, and the teams exchanged points until it was 22-all. That’s when Hope’s Jolene Sanchez mixed in an ace with a Los Alamos hitting error and a block when Salazar’s attempt at a kill was knocked down.
Los Alamos survived a close second game and then stormed back from a 10-3 hole in the third game. An ace by Thelliez gave the Toppers a 23-20 lead, but once again Hope found new life and got the win.
As demoralizing at it seemed, the loss set the tone in the fourth game as Hope led 5-0. The Lady Hilltoppers rattled off a 17-7 run to take control and force a fifth game in which they seemed to have things in hand after taking a 9-5 lead. The Huskies had one last push, rallying to tie it at 10 before winning it on Villalpando’s ace.
Hope advances to Friday’s quarterfinals where it will face No. 1 seed St. Pius X.