The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Fighting for spot in the post season
by Than Acuff
It looks like the Crested Butte Titans volleyball team is back on track and ready for the post-season, if they can just get in. The Titans won their final two matches of the season last week and are currently ranked 35th, with 36 teams making the cut for the regional tournament. But, due to two forfeits earlier in the season, they have one more additional match to play in Gunnison on Saturday, October 27 to finalize their position in the post-season.
“We’re getting another game in to help with our ranking,” says coach Morgan McNallie. “Hopefully that will help improve our standings.”
The final week of play started off rough as they dropped a match to Sargent but the team finally shook off the October break blues and recovered for their match against Dolores Huerta Prep on Thursday, October 18.
The Titans took down Dolores Huerta in straight sets earlier in the season and looked to do the same on Thursday when they won the first set 25-16. But, then the October break Titans took the floor in the second set and fell 21-25, leaving some uneasiness in the air.
“We kind of fell apart,” says McNallie. “We were missing easy things. It reminded me a lot of a really bad practice.”
But they soon recovered to their better ways for the third and fourth sets, rattling off 25-13 and 25-14 wins to take the match. Serving streaks from Madison Panky and Sophie Hall helped pace the Titans to the two big wins in the third and fourth sets.
“That’s the way it should have ended,” says McNallie. “We were getting kills and racking up points. We turned it around.”
They returned to workouts on Friday looking to continue their last season surge as they prepared for their next match against South Park on Saturday, October 20.
“We had an amazing practice and going into the game on Saturday the girls were rested and prepared and played amazing,” says McNallie.
The Titans opened up on fire and never slowed down, rolling to a straight set win 25-13, 25-18 and 25-10. Maisy Ramsey set a pre-match goal of 20 kills and came close, leading the team with 19 while Panky proved potent from the service line again and Sydney Stoneberg continued her role leading the team.
“They just kept the momentum going and played great,” says McNallie. “Syd and Maisy have just kept their momentum going the entire season.”
Now they are headed into unfamiliar territory on Saturday, October 27 in Gunnison. The Colorado high school sports organizing committee decided that, due to their two forfeits earlier this year, they needed to get one more match in. As a result, they are set to play whoever finishes in fourth place at a tournament in Gunnison this Saturday.
“I have no idea what to expect,” says McNallie. “We’re going into Saturday pretty blind. Hopefully we can start out strong and pull out a win against whoever.”
