Lady Cats 2nd, Cats finish 4th at Carlsbad

CARLSBAD — Clovis High’s girls ran second while the boys were fourth in Saturday’s Carlsbad Invitational cross country meet.

Lovington won the boys’ eight-team competition with 48 points to 64 for Hobbs, 71 for Carlsbad and 87 for the Wildcats. Team scores, meantime, were not available on the girls side, with the Lady Wildcats finishing behind Hobbs.

Sophomore Sammy Fuentes led the CHS boys, covering the 3.1-mile course in 17 minutes, 27 seconds for second place behind only Derrick Castillanos of Lovington.

Meantime, the young Lady Cats girls squad was led by an eighth-grader, Mai Nguy, who finished 14th in a time of 24:23. All six Clovis runners were bunched within a minute of each other.

Hobbs went 1-2-3-4 in the meet, led by Bhret Clay with a time of 21:02.

Clovis squads return to action on Saturday in the La Cueva Invitational.

Lady Coyotes topple PHS — At Roswell, Portales High’s volleyball team dropped a couple of tough sets and the Lady Rams went down to Roswell High 30-28, 25-12, 25-21, 25-22 on Monday night.

“We had our chances, for sure,” PHS coach Jacki Bailey said of the opening set. “Our teams are pretty equal.”

Portales (4-4) was pretty much dominated in Game 2 by the Lady Coyotes (8-3), but made things pretty interesting over the final two sets.

“They’ve only lost to top teams,” Bailey said of the Lady Coyotes. “I was proud of how we responded after playing so poorly in the second set.”

Freshman Skyler Massey led PHS with nine kills and five blocks, while junior Audrey Paden had nine kills and 12 digs. Also, senior Setter Maebri Knox posted 21 assists, with sophomore setter Myleigh Banda finished with seven digs and 12 assists.

The Lady Rams will host the six-team Peyton Chavez Invitational this weekend at the RAC, with pool play set for Friday and bracket play on Saturday. Other teams participating are Clovis, Texico, Moriarty, Taos and Pojoaque.

CHS volleyball team caps 4-0 week — The Lady Wildcats posted a pair of sweeps on Saturday, beating host Highland 25-18, 25-23, 25-14 and then knocking off Del Norte 25-18, 27-25, 25-3 to cap a 4-0 week and reach the .500 mark (6-6) for the season.

In the second match, the winless Knights (0-7) narrowly missed tying the match in the second game, but completely ran out of steam after that.

Junior outside hitter Kailyn Jefferson posted 13 kills for the Lady Cats, while senior setter Ella Howalt posted 21 assists. Junior outside hitter Aeryanne Conn posted 15 digs, junior outside hitter Erin Creasy had seven digs and 12 assists and sophomore libero Marisa Lopez added 12 digs.

Against the Hornets (2-5), Jefferson had 12 kills and Conn chipped in 11 digs. Lopez posted eight digs and three aces, while Creasy and Howalt each had 15 assists.

“I thought Mari (Lopez) played well in both matches,” CHS coach Darrel Ray said. “Kailyn had a really good weekend, and so did Aeryanne.”

The Lady Cats were to return to action on Tuesday at Roswell Goddard before heading to Portales this weekend.