Sleeping in its own beds gave the Durango High School volleyball team a boost Saturday against Grand Junction.
The Demons (5-7, 2-2 Southwestern League) swept Grand Junction (5-6, 0-4 SWL) on Saturday in their second home match in as many days, 25-19, 25-11, 25-19.
DHS conquered the slow starts that had been plaguing the team earlier in the year, playing even in the first set early and jumping out to a 6-1 lead in the second.
“I have no idea (what the difference was),” said Bella Bernazanni, daughter of John and Robin Bernazzani. “There’s a switch that just clicked on for us. We’ve been trying to come out strong for the last three weekends but finally on a Saturday morning at home it happened.”
The Demons were playing just their second home game of the season and bounced back from a 3-2 loss to Montrose on Friday at home to even their league record four games into the schedule.
“They needed that; they needed to be able to play well at home,” DHS assistant coach Erika Sansoni said. “We have Cortez on Thursday, and I think this will carry them to that.”
DHS first-year head coach Colleen Keresey missed the game because of a previous commitment made before the season.
Bernazzani and fellow senior Berkeley Davis controlled the net throughout the match to give DHS an advantage.
The pair combined for 15 kills and 12 blocks in the match.
Davis had thre kills in the Demons’ first seven points in the first set, while Davis tied the third set at 11 with two kills after DHS trailed 9-11.
“We wanted to come out hard in this game; we wanted to start out strong,” said Davis, daughter of Donna and Jim Davis. “In order to do that we needed to play to win. As a front row player I was trying to really hit it instead of playing conservatively.”
Setters Logan Clark and Alli Davis spread the ball around to keep the Tigers confused and allow DHS better attack opportunities.
Clark had 25 assists and Davis nine, while four Demons had six or more kills.
“They were moving the ball a lot quicker than we could keep up with,” Grand Junction head coach Shawna Emmons said. “We didn’t play up to where we needed to be for this team.”
DHS will hit the road for its next match Thursday at Montezuma-Cortez.
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
