The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Secures first league win
[ by Than Acuff ]Homecoming is often a nervy outing for the Crested Butte Titans volleyball team and they had a tough match-up when they hosted the Del Norte Tigers for the big match on Friday, September 29.
“Del Norte is usually top three in our league and beat a couple of good teams this year,” says coach Marla Covey.
Rather than get rattled, the Titans stepped up to the challenge to battle with the Tigers, falling just short in the first game of the match 25–23. They dropped the second set 25–21 and lost one of their starters to injury, but continued to fight before falling in the third set 28–26 to lose the match. Annie Collins closed the match with five big blocks.
“It would have been nice to get that third one, but I thought we battled them harder than I expected,” says Covey.
The Titans remained at home the next day to host the South Park Burros and kept their energy up for the league match to rattle off a straight set win, 25–18, 25–14, 25–13.
“Last year it took us five to beat them,” says Covey. “I’m really happy we beat them in three, we never took the foot off the gas.”
The Titans were strong from the service line all weekend with Mia O’Neil racking up 26 points off her serve through the two matches.
“Our serving was really strong all weekend,” says Covey.
Covey got a great effort from Hailey Huresky after moving her into a new spot, Elise Hanna came through with numerous assists and digs and Mandala Covey-Bleiberg led the team in kills. In addition, an injury during the second game of the match with Del Norte had Covey look to her bench through the weekend and they rose to the challenge.
“We didn’t miss a beat,” says Covey. “The bench came through and kept us in games.”
The Titans take a break for matches for the next 10 days and when they return from October Break, they jump back into the fire when they host Custer County on Tuesday, October 17.
