Portales, Elida both eye the Blue Trophy

STAFF WRITER

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Over the weekend the New Mexico Athletics Association released its seedlings for the 2016 state volleyball playoffs with Roosevelt County sending two representatives hopeful to return the Blue Trophy home: The Class 4A Portales Lady Rams and the Class 1A Elida Lady Tigers.

Staff photo: Matthew Asher

Defensive specialist Alexis Garcia receives a serve during Tuesday’s practice while teammate Janae Hale looks on. Portales received the No. 8 seed in the Class 4A volleyball tournament and will play No. 1 Sandia Prep and No. 12 West Las Vegas.

Starting today, the top 12 teams in every Class will meet in the morning in Rio Rancho to compete in pool play. Each Class is broken up into four pools with three team apiece. All three teams will play a round-robin style with each set starting at four points. The winner is the first to 25 points and win by at least two or will end with whatever team gets to 27 points first.

From there, the top team in each pool receives a bye and will have the rest of Thursday off. The No. 2 and No. 3 teams in each pool will play one regular match with the winners returning on Friday to face the top seeds.

Elida (19-3) is looking for it’s seventh-straight small-school volleyball title and was given the top seed in the Class 1A tournament. They will face No. 8 Des Moines and No. 12 Animas.

“In pool play you’ve got to keep the ball in the square,” Elida coach Darrell Chenault said. “You can’t be hitting the ball out on serves, knocking it out on spikes. You have to treat it like it’s a Game 5 instead of first to 15 it’s first to 21.”

Chenault did say he hasn’t asked his girls to play less aggressively, just to play intelligently.

“You have to play more focused and take what the ball gives you,” he said. “If it’s one you mash on, you mash it, if it’s one you control, you control it and keep it in. This is not when you try to do something special and make a hard point out of an easy ball. We’ve had good practices this week.”

The big question for Elida is if middle blocker Kasyn Creighton will be able to play or if her ankle injury suffered in the district championship game will keep her out. Chenault still doesn’t know the answer.

“ Kasyn is still soaking her foot in the ice bucket every day,” he said. “We’re changing rotations if she can’t make it. I’d say 50-50 if she can play.”

Following it’s Class 4-4A semifinal loss, Portales (10-11) was given the No. 8 seed and will face No. 1 Sandia Prep and No. 12 West Las Vegas in its pool.

“We’ve been focusing on our game and controlling the ball so we can run our offense,” Portales coach Charity Gomez said. “We’re very confident that we can surprise some people in our last 10 matches we’ve won our first set. Even though we’re playing the No. 1 team in Sandia Prep, we think we can surprise them, take at least one set and maybe upset them and get a top spot. Even if we finish second in pool, we’ll go the opposite side of the bracket and wouldn’t face Sandia Prep until the championship.”

Gomez wants to make sure her team doesn’t suffer another upset loss like they did against Moriarty last week. With practice this week, Gomez isn’t too worried.

“I think that was a little bit of lack of focus,” Gomez said about that match. “We talked about not worrying about the outcome, just focus on playing each ball the best we can. If we stay with that ‘next ball’ mentality, we should be fine.”