Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
PHS sophomore outside hitter Annaleah Lujan raises her arms in celebrating with teammates after the Lady Rams won the second set of Tuesday's match. The Lady Rams claimed the district title with a four-set win over the Lady Rockets.
Portales High's girls claimed the automatic berth into this week's Class 4A state tournament, beating Roswell Goddard 25-23, 25-18, 20-25, 25-17 on Thursday night at the Ram Athletic Center to take the District 4-4A championship over the Lady Rockets.
PHS (15-8, 5-1 district), currently ranked sixth by MaxPreps in 4A, now awaits the release of the state bracket today by the New Mexico Activities Association. Goddard (12-11, 4-2) and third-place Artesia (12-11, 3-3), who reached last year's state semifinals, were also ranked in the top 10 and have a chance to make the field.
Junior middle hitter Skyler Massey compiled 20 kills, 12 digs, an ace and a block for the Lady Rams, while senior setter Myleigh Banda had 38 assists, 11 digs and an ace.
"Goddard played a good match," PHS coach Bailey Greenwalt said. "I thought our girls played a good, clean match about 90 percent of the time. We served and we serve-received well."
Senior libero Angel Ornelas posted 32 digs for the Lady Rams. Sophomores Annaleah Lujan and Ainsley Horton each added six kills for PHS, sophomore Belia Lopez posted a team-high three assists and Rippee finished with six digs and four kills.
Greenwalt said her squad is playing well heading into the state meet.
"I feel we have good momentum right now," she said. "We're on our way to peaking, and it's kind of fun to watch them do that."
PHS ran out to an early 8-3 advantage in Game 1, but the Lady Rockets roared back to grab a 13-11 advantage. It was then tied several times, the last at 23-23, before a kill by senior defensive specialist Tya Rippee and a Goddard attack error put the Lady Rams up by a game.
Portales built a 17-8 lead in the second set, Goddard closed to 19-15 before the Lady Rams closed it out. Goddard then broke away from a 10-10 tie in the third set with an 8-2 run.
In Game 4, Goddard pulled to 15-13 with five points in a row, but the Lady Rams ran off 10 of the final 14 points to lock it down.
Portales 3, Lovington 0 – On Tuesday night, the Lady Rams cruised to a 25-11, 25-7, 25-12 win at winless Lovington (0-23, 0-6 district), which was swept by Artesia on Thursday in its district finale and hasn't won a game since a 3-1 loss at Clovis on September 14.
Banda posted another double-double (24 assists, 11 digs) for the Lady Rams. Massey compiled 16 kills, five aces and seven digs for the Lady Rams. while Ornelas finished with 13 digs, junior Erin Van Leuven notched six kills and senior defensive specialist Destiny Blackwell collected three aces.
