BAYFIELD
After a short water break, Terene Foutz returned to the practice gymnasium to find some of her players attempting a full ballerina split.
“Let’s not do splits we haven’t done since third grade on the night before state,” the Bayfield High School volleyball head coach told her team calmly but firmly before starting the team’s final drill of the season in the BHS gym.
The Wolverines left BHS on Thursday night – with an honorary police escort to Saul’s Creek – for their sixth consecutive CHSAA Class 3A Girls Volleyball State Championships, where they’ll be the No. 3 seed this year.
That places BHS (22-3) in Pool 3 with No. 6 Manitou Springs and a familiar foe, No. 10 Pagosa Springs.
“For us, it’s a dream seed. We had no misconceptions that we’d be a one- or a two-seed,” Foutz said. “We know what we’re up against; we know who we’re up against, and the three-seed is a gift. This time last year, we were that eight-seed and had to play a one.”
Instead, BHS will open the state tournament with an opponent its already beaten twice this year in Pagosa Springs (19-6).
The Pirates hosted a regional tournament and won two games to advance to state after finishing second in the Intermountain League to BHS, which hasn’t lost an IML match since 2007, when the Wolverines lost to the Pirates.
Bayfield and Pagosa Springs will be the fourth pool-play match of the day at approximately 12:30 p.m. Friday at the Denver Coliseum.
Pool play will open at 8 a.m. Friday at the Denver Coliseum with No. 4 University and No. 9 Faith Christian, and subsequent games will start eight minutes after the previous one finishes.
BHS also will play the eighth and final pool-play match of the day against Manitou Springs (21-4), a foe the Wolverines haven’t seen in their recent history.
“We haven’t seen Manitou since about two years ago, so going up against them should be a strong game,” said BHS senior Kirstie Hillyer, daughter of Laura and Rich Hillyer.
Manitou Springs’ most important player far and away is junior outside hitter Katie McKiel. She leads the state of Colorado across all classifications with 469 kills and a .580 hitting percentage.
“They have a monster outside hitter. She’s very deadly,” Foutz said. “She is legitimately a Division I outside pin hitter. That’s what we have to deal with.”
The silver lining, if their is one for BHS, is that Manitou Springs only has one other player with more than 100 kills this season in junior McKenzi Patricko.
Knowing what likely is coming has helped BHS prepare for it the last week in practice.
“We are discussing some lineup changes, but that’s not new for us,” Foutz said. “We work on it every day in practice.”
Also in the Wolverines’ favor is the fact that they’ve been here before.
Hillyer, a future Division I (Colorado State)big in her own rite, has played in the state tournament every year of her high school career, senior setter Suzie Rhodes has been to Denver three times, and the rest of the Wolverines’ seniors – Martina Moreno, Caitlin Phelps and Jessie Roukema – played in the Coliseum last season.
“We’re not all scared,” said Roukema, daughter of Jerrin and Shane Roukema. “We know what it’s like since we’ve been up there.”
That doesn’t change the fact that the Wolverines will have to play two matches against two of the top 10 teams in the state over the course of a matter of hours.
For the players, rest is the key component.
“It’s definitely a good thing, because we get it over with and can relax,” Hillyer said. “We get to have it over with and can focus on those next games on Saturday instead of having pool play again.”
For Foutz, though, there’s a disadvantage.
“I think it hurts us a little bit, because Manitou’s going to watch our match against Pagosa; we don’t have film on Manitou,” she said. “They’re going to watch us that day, so we’re exposed as of 12:30 p.m. Friday.”
Should BHS win both of its Friday matches, the Wolverines will advance to the semifinal round for the first time in three years.
There, they would play the winner of Pool 2, which features No. 2 Valley, No. 7 Platte Valley and No. 11 Coal Ridge.
“It’s gonna take everything we have,” Foutz said. “It’s gonna take everything Bayfield has to offer.”
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
