Middle school volleyball team sweeps league tournament

The Crested Butte Titans Middle School Volleyball A team put on quite a show Saturday, October 27 as they beat all three of the league teams to become the league champions.

Having finished the regular season in second place behind Ridgway, the Titans were primed and ready to prove their true mettle at the tournament, and that is exactly what they did—losing only one game in their three-match shut-out. The day began with a surprising two-game upset of the league’s first-place team in the regular season, Ridgway, by the third place team and tournament host, Ouray, 25-15, 25-21. In the second match of the day, the Titans were ready for a rematch with the fourth-place team, DeBeque, which had beaten the Titans the previous weekend. The game went back and forth with great play from both teams and 16 pass-set-hit combinations executed successfully by the Titans. However, that just wasn’t enough to prevail, and the DeBeque Dragons won the game 26-24. The Titans had a plan, though, and losing to DeBeque again just wasn’t part of it. They started off strong in the second game and with more great teamwork and serving, pushed through to a 25-18 win. In the third game, the Titans took everything the Dragons gave them and turned it into a pass-set-spike combination that turned out to be too much for the DeBeque girls and the Titans ended their rematch with a 15-7 third game score to win the match. The next match pitted DeBeque against Ridgway and both teams battled hard to the very end. Both teams gave great performances keeping the fans on the edge of their seats until DeBeque finally prevailed, 28-26. Ridgway fought their way back, winning the second game 25-23 and setting up for the tie-breaker. DeBeque, however, showed their spunk and scrappiness as they refused to succumb and pushed their way to a 15-13 score to win the match. Next, the Titans faced the tournament hosts, the Ouray Bears, just returned from their great upset of the Ridgway Demons, but the Titans showed no hesitation as they once again took every ball and turned it into an offensive play that was too tough to handle. With 14 three-hit combinations the Titans took the first game 25- 18. Everyone passed and served well and began to see the power and fun behind a well placed spike. The second game proved to be a walk in the park for the girls as they cruised to a 25-11 win for the match. While it looked like the Ridgway team was down and out, having lost their first two matches of the day, the Titans were taking nothing for granted. Having been beaten in the first round of the season by the Demons, the girls knew they were a team with skill, so they just focused on serves and three-hit combinations to control the game. The Ridgway girls gave it a good effort, but the Titans were just too focused to be derailed and pushed on through to a 25 -17 first game score. The second game went back a forth for a while, but the Titans again took it up a notch and playing their own pass-set-hit game rolled on to a 25-18 final score for the match and the first place in the tournament. The Lady Titans were awarded the traveling trophy and all 14 members of the team were awarded individual medals. Officials, coaches, players and fans commented on the high level of play displayed by the Titans throughout the day. DeBeque and Ouray played out their match and DeBeque came out on top to claim second place in the tournament.