Clovis manages split

CLOVIS — Clovis’ volleyball team brought ‘Season One’ to a successful end Thursday night.

Season One is how the Lady Wildcats refer to their pre-district schedule, and Season Two is District 4/5A play. They ended the former by rallying from a first-set loss to beat Lovington 16-25, 25-21, 26-24, 25-20, their first victory of the season at Rock Staubus Gymnasium.

And they sent themselves into the latter with some momentum, having won four of their last five, and improving to 5-8.

“We need to put all that (from Season One) behind us,” Chavez said. “And now we start (Season Two) and see what we can do.”

“This was good, but now we’re just focused on Season Two,” Lady Wildcats junior setter Kameron Kelley said after ringing up 13 kills and 12 digs Thursday.

Camryn Barros had 31 digs for the Lady Wildcats, who will now go into Season Two with momentum, which is huge.

“It’s important,” Chavez said, “because we needed a win. We needed a win at home, we needed to build some confidence.”

“It’s a confidence-booster for us,” Kelley said.

It’s not how you start …

Despite Clovis’ victory Thursday, it didn’t begin all that well.

The Lady Wildcats did go ahead in the set, took a 12-9 lead on a Kaci Cabeldue ace, then went up 13-9 on a return that was out.

Lovington, though, won five straight points to take a 14-13 lead. A Clovis timeout seemed to help the Lady Wildcats, who won three straight to go up 16-14, but they then fell apart, losing the next 11 points to close out the set.

The Lady ’Cats turned things around in the second set, and did so after plummeting into 5-0 and 7-2 holes. Later in the set, Lovington was still holding firm, leading 15-8 before Clovis started quickly along the comeback trail. The Lady Wildcats tore off seven straight points to tie, the equalizer coming on a Hannah Gallegos kill, then made it eight straight to take a 16-15 lead.

Lovington tied it at 16 before Clovis went ahead on a Tabatha Gallegos kill, and the Lady ’Cats maintained the lead from there. It was still close late in the set, with Clovis up 23-21, but another Tabatha Gallegos kill and another by Cabeldue finished off the set and tied the match at 1.

The third set was tied 1-1 on points, but after the Lady Wildcats took a 2-1 advantage, they led most of the way. The Lady ’Cats never quite pulled away in the set; their biggest lead was five. Their advantage, in fact, was down to 23-21 before another Cabeldue kill brought her team to the brink of winning the set, but Lovington was able to climb back to tie it at 24.

The Lady Wildcats, though, won the next two points on a Kelley kill and a Lovington return that was out, taking the set 26-24 to lead the match 2-1.

Lovington jumped up 2-0 and 3-1 in the fourth set, but Clovis surged ahead 6-3, the last two points of that 5-0 run coming on Kelley and Cabeldue kills, respectively.

Clovis went on to build a 14-6 lead before a 10-2 Lovington run tied the set at 16. Chavez decided it was a good juncture to call timeout.

“I told them, ‘Don’t play that little back-and-forth ball at the net, because when you play that, anything can happen,’” Chavez recalled of her timeout schpiel. “And that’s what was happening – we’d go back and forth, and back and forth, and then anybody can error. And I told them, ‘Push it out and let’s try to get it back where we can run some kind of an offense off of a play.’ So that’s what I told them. ‘Just quit playing that back-and-forth stuff.’ It was painful to watch.”

Kelley said the Lady Wildcats didn’t get rattled in the face of Lovington’s comeback.

“Just keep pushing through,” she said of her mindset. “Those tough times happen, but we keep pushing through.”

And they did, winning the next four points – the fourth a Kelley block – to go up 20-16. Lovington charged back again, closing to within 20-19, but Clovis won five of the next six points to win the set, 25-20, and seal the match.

Despite the hard-earned victory, Chavez wasn’t thrilled with how her team had performed.

“I didn’t feel like we played our game,” she said. “I felt like we were out of sync, our passing was off. We just didn’t play the way I wanted to play.”

But, it was one to toss in the all’s-well-that-ends-well file.

“We got the win,” Chavez said. “I was proud of them for pulling through a game that was not pretty.”

And her team is now enjoying a break before visiting Carlsbad on Tuesday, the start of Season Two. A long awaited break for sure.

“We’ve been going like crazy,” Chavez said. “We’ve been gone every week and every weekend for a month.”

When the respite is over, Chavez likes her team’s chances in district play.

“I don’t think any one team is high above anybody else,” she said. “We all have our positives and we all have our struggles.”

Winning streaks collide

PORTALES — Both Clovis and Portales came into Tuesday night’s game at the Ram Athletic Center on winning streaks. The Lady Rams had won 10 straight after losing their season opener; Clovis was on a two-game win streak.

By match’s end, Portales was the team with its streak intact, winning in three sets, though not anywhere near as easily as the term sweep indicates. The Lady Rams had to rally from down big to win the first set 25-22, then had a little easier time in the second set by winning it 25-16, then staved off the Lady Wildcats in the third set to win that one, 25-20, and take the match.

With Barros serving, the Lady ’Cats won the first point and kept on winning, jumping out to a 5-0 lead.

They eventually went up 8-2, the eighth point coming on a Cady Ratledge kill. Portales’ Kinzie Davis broke up the momentum a bit with a kill to bring her team within five, but the Lady Wildcats increased their lead, taking seven-point advantages five different times (10-3, 11-4, 12-5, 13-6, 15-8) after that.

Portales, however, chipped away and brought it down to 15-10, then down further to 17-15, then 18-17, then 19-all.

A Kiara Cox kill gave the Lady Wildcats a 20-19 edge, and they were up 21-19 before Portales scored the next two points and forged a 21-all tie. A Rams return out put Clovis ahead by one, but Portales then scored four straight points — on a shot Clovis couldn’t return, a point for Mattison Blakey, a Marisela Garcia kill and a Wildcats return out — to win the set 25-22.

Portales stayed in control for most of the second set and won it by nine. And then after falling behind 6-3 in the third set, rallied with nine straight points to build a 12-6 advantage.

With the score 14-7, an Adrianna Garcia ace put the Lady Rams up by eight, and they eventually built double-digit leads of 19-9 and 20-10. Clovis stormed back to win five straight points, and after a Portales timeout, a decent volley was finished by a Davis kill to thwart the Lady Wildcats’ momentum a bit.

Clovis soon shaved its deficit to three — 21-18 and 23-20 — but Portales scored the last two points and earned the victory.

Portales made it 12 in a row on Thursday at Ruidoso, sweeping the Lady Warriors 25-16, 25-10, 25-15.

The Lady Rams were in action again late Saturday afternoon, visiting Texico.