Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Texico's Rachel Phipps passes the ball to Skylar Schaap (11) during the 2A state volleyball championship match on Friday at The Pit in Albuquerque. The Bears rallied from an early deficit to upset the Wolverines in five sets.
ALBUQUERQUE - Seemingly well on their way to a seventh consecutive Class 2A state championship, the wheels fell off late on Friday for the Texico volleyball team.
Unbeaten, second-seeded Cloudcroft rallied to dominate the fourth and fifth sets and stunned the top-seeded Lady Wolverines 16-25, 25-21, 15-25, 25-11,15-5 at The Pit on the campus of the University of New Mexico.
The Lady Bears (17-0) took advantage of Texico's late struggles to wrest the title from the Lady Wolverines.
"Cloudcroft is really good," veteran Texico coach Kristen Scanlan said. "We were super-excited to play a really strong team, but we just didn't get it done."
Senior outside hitter/setter Riley Rohrbach posted 18 kills for the Lady Wolverines (13-2), while senior outside hitter/setter Rachel Phipps had a double-double with 15 kills and 11 assists.
Texico had won 12 in a row since a four-set loss to Class 4A Portales in its second outing of the season, and had dropped only one set in that time. Meantime, the Lady Bears had gone five sets just once previously this season - in a District 3-2A win over Capitan on March 13 - and had lost only nine sets all told before Friday.
"It was crazy how the momentum changed in the fourth and fifth sets," Scanlan said. "We just didn't have our best match.
"We struggled as a team, (but) Phipps and (senior outside hitter/defensive specialist) Sydnee Muse both had a really good match."
Texico graduates five key players from this year's squad, so there could be a bit of rebuilding next year, Scanlan said.
"With the exception of our two middles (juniors Jalissa Harrison and Skyler Schaap), we're going to be very young coming back," she said.
In Wednesday's semifinal round at Texico, the Lady Wolverines advanced with a 25-12, 25-11, 25-11 domination of fifth-seeded Mescalero.
Rohrbach had 14 kills and 15 assists and Muse added six kills, 14 digs and two aces in that one. Also, Phipps collected six kills, seven digs and 15 assists and sophomore libero Grace McDaniel notched 13 digs.
