The Pagosa Springs High School Lady Pirates went 1-1 over the last week to move to a 4-3 record on the season.
On Thursday, Sept. 5, the Lady Pirates welcomed the Alamosa Mean Moose to town, but sent the Mean Moose home with a 3-0 win.
Alamosa won the first set 25-12, the second set 25-13 and the third set 25-20.
“I was really proud of the girls for going up against a very tough team that’s already like very well-oiled, and we are still pretty raw right now and have a ton of growth,” said coach Katie Lorenzen.
She added she told the team after the game that she’s excited by how much potential the team still has and that in that game against a “really good, tough team” they never gave up, never gave up on each other and finished strong.
“Even though we lost in three, our third set was the best,” she said.
The coach highlighted the Lady Pirates’ passing in the game.
“We passed really well that game against a tough team, which was great so that we had an opportunity to run an offense, but we never did get in an offensive rhythm,” she said. “Our block had to work harder than they have at all this season and going up against a middle from Alamosa that jumped so high, was so quick, and their setter could get her the ball at a speed that we ... can’t even replicate at practice.”
She added she was proud of the Lady Pirates’ middles for working hard to get to every block and to have to commit block, which is something she noted they haven’t really had to do in practice.
“So, ... I was really impressed by just how hard they worked and [followed] directions,” Lorenzen said.
Lorenzen also highlighted Pagosa’s seven aces and two service errors.
“That was nice. We were serving tough and kept our errors really low,” she said.
Lexi Campbell recorded three of those aces, with Cadence Kerns and Dawson Iverson recording two each.
Campbell led the team with 11 serving points.
Aspen Pitcher logged four of the team’s 13 kills, with Kerns tallying three.
The Lady Pirates had six blocks in the matchup, with Pitcher logging the team’s solo block and Kerns leading with four assisted blocks.
The team had 24 digs, led by six from Kerns.
Sophia Sottek led the team in assists with eight of the team’s 12.
Pitcher led the team in serve receptions with 25 of the team’s total of 58.
The Lady Pirates rebounded with a 3-1 win against the Telluride Miners on Saturday, Sept. 7.
The Lady Pirates won the first set 26-24, fell 25-19 in the second, won 25-21 in the third and completed the victory with a 25-12 win in the fourth set.
“It was nice to get the win at home,” Lorenzen said, pointing out the Lady Pirates also switched their home bench to the other end of the court for the game. “it’s pretty much been since 2019 that ... we’ve been on that side of the court because we used to switch between every single set, but the state refs have still voted to not switch sides in between sets. So, we’d wanted to do this before, but this year we just told the girls we are gonna flip-flop every home game or so. That way we have a different view as coaches behind our outside hitters instead of spending almost the entire season only behind our ... setter and right-side hitters and having only that view.”
She added almost every gym the team goes to they end up on the same end of the bench.
“So, it was really nice to have a different view,” she said, adding it allowed them to see for the outside hitters what was available and where Telluride wasn’t blocking.
“And both outside hitters just crushed it,” she said. “It was really, really fun to see. Both of our outsides ended up with 10 kills.”
Campbell led the team in overall points with her 10 kills and six aces, Lorenzen noted, and had a double-double, also tallying 16 digs.
Pitcher also had a double-double with 10 kills and 13 digs.
Lorenzen noted Iverson logged the best hitting percentage on the team for the game, adding she had eight kills, kept the ball in play and was aggressive.
“So, that was really nice to see, and she’s going for the slides and that is what her job is when she’s in the front row next to the setter, so she’s done a great job with that,” the coach said.
Both setters were in the best rhythm they’ve been in all season, the coach pointed out.
Hayden Peterson had 17 assists in the matchup, and Sottek had 13.
The coach noted the team had too many service errors, but indicated being on the other side of the gym and having different depth perception with how much space is behind the north side of the court.
“We had a little bit of ups and downs, and we made some switches with liberos that was planned,” Lorenzen said, adding both Charity Domingo and Amber Snarr did a great job going in, bringing a lot of energy and giving their all to the team.
Cadence Kerns had a total of eight blocks, two solo and six assisted, the coach pointed out, noting she did a great job and worked really hard to get all over the place.
The team had 10 total blocks.
Pitcher led the team in serve receptions with 30.
“It was nice to get our first win of the season at home,” Lorenzen said.
The Lady Pirates will have three games over the next week, beginning with an away matchup against Del Norte at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 12.
The Tigers are 7-0 on the season.
At 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 14, the Lady Pirates will welcome the Montezuma-Cortez Panthers for a league matchup.
The Panthers are 6-6 on the season and 1-0 in league play, while the Lady Pirates are 0-1 in league action.
On Tuesday, Sept. 17, the team will again hit the road, this time to take on the Bayfield Wolverines at 6 p.m.
The Wolverines are 3-5 on the season and 0-1 in league play.
Lorenzen noted the Lady Pirates are looking forward to getting “better and better.”
