The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Final home match this Friday at 5 p.m.
The Crested Butte Titans volleyball team closed a two-week stretch of league play with two wins and a loss, including a thrilling five-set win over Del Norte.
On Thursday, September 23 the Titans hosted Center Vikings and as a team started to demonstrate some intensity and consistency. All of the Titans contributed on the court to seal the victory for the Titans in four sets 25-11, 25-22, 19-25 and 25-13. The team served 93 percent on the day with seven aces. Senior Melanie Whiting stepped in and served 100 percent and had three kills. Other seniors contributed to the effort, including Sarah Cielinski serving 100 percent and Melissa Harrington stepped it up as a middle hitter with a key kill in the third set. Junior setter Sydney Jernigan’s serve flustered the Vikings as she served two aces and 18 points in the set.
Saturday, September 25 the Titans hit the road to battle the undefeated La Veta Redskins. Based on the Redskin record, the Titans knew they would be facing the strongest team in the league. To compete successfully, the Titans were going to have to work to eliminate mental errors and not give away any easy points.
Unfortunately, the Titans started off timidly but after falling behind 0-5, they started to demonstrate some grit and started to compete with the Redskins. Against the strong-hitting Redskins, the Titans picked up their blocking. Senior middle Karleigh Dean and sophomore middle Sara Sherman had four and three blocks respectively. Junior Toni Brown and Sherman led the team with four kills each. The Titans struggled with eliminating mental errors; the team would battle in a long rally and win the point, only to put the next serve in the net.
In the end, the Titans gave away too many easy points to stay with the Redskins and had one of their worse serving matches of the year, serving 79 percent as a team. While the scores do not reflect some of the long, intense rallies, the Titans lost in three consecutive sets 11-25, 15-25 and 14-25.
One week later, the Titans hit the road again for a match with the Del Norte Tigers on Saturday, October 2. Del Norte has a solid team that refused to quit on any point and proved to be very good at tipping to holes in the defense.
The Titans started off on fire, with strong serving from senior Asya Stillo, who served six points to give the Titans the lead at 22-14 and helped the Titans take the first set 25-15. The next set the Titans struggled to lose 12-25 but turned it around in the third set and prevailed 25-21.
The Tigers jumped out to an early lead in the fourth set while the Titans battled back eventually, losing 21-25.
That left the match to be decided by the fifth and deciding set, which is scored to 15 points, with a team having to win by two points.
Having your first five set match of the season be on the road would prove to be a big test for the Titans. A key to winning any fifth set is to avoid falling behind early by giving up easy points. The Titans jumped to an 11-5 lead but the Tigers refused to quit and battled back and eventually tied the Titans 14-14. Then the Tigers missed a serve, swinging the momentum back to the Titans. Shannon Holleran proceeded to serve the final three points and seal the victory at 17-15 for the Titans.
The team served 86 percent, with Shannon Holleran having served 14 points and Sydney Jernigan serving 10 points on the day. Offensively Holleran contributed 12 kills in the match, and Dean and Sherman had five kills each.
The Titans have their final home match at 5 p.m. on Friday, October 8 with varsity hosting the Sangre De Cristo Thunderbirds. The Thunderbirds have a strong program, having gone to the state tournament the past two years. The Titan team that likes to compete hard will need to show up from the first point and will have to battle the Thunderbirds if they are going to secure a victory in their final regular season home meet.
The Titans then hit the road on Saturday, October 9 for a match with Paonia at 2 p.m.
