It seemed the Bayfield Wolverines were about to clinch their 10th consecutive Intermountain League volleyball championship.
But that didn't happen Tuesday night, as a rising Alamosa team climbed out of a 2-games-to-0 hole, stunning the Wolverines with a 3-2 win for the visitors.
"It definitely feels great," Alamosa junior setter Micalyn Carpenter said exhaustedly afterwards, trying to describe Alamosa's usurpation of the long-ruled throne. "We've definitely stepped it up a lot this year, and we did great!"
Wolverine junior Miranda Talbot's last serve sailed uninterrupted through Alamosa's back row and out of bounds on match point, locking up a once-improbable 14-25, 17-25, 27-25, 25-18, 15-9 comeback conquest.
"Bayfield came out on fire, and we were just so slow getting started!" said Head Coach Amber Ullery. "Deer in the headlights!"
BHS (10-9, 6-2 IML) started hot, hoping to extend their late-season winning streak to six straight matches.
"We were playing to our fullest potential," said Bayfield's Brooke Kudelski, honored on Senior Night along with Katie Hawkins. "We were all playing as a team, and we all played how we all know we can play. That's what really helped us; I think we all just started getting, like, 'Oh yeah, we've got this! This is our game now!'"
On serve during an incredible Game 1 run which saw the Wolverines' lead swell from 9-4 to an unexpected 15-4, Kudelski drilled a vicious cross-court kill on game point, informing the guests their stay might be quite short.
And behind the serving of junior Maddi Foutz and sophomore Sydney Gabbard, BHS broke out to a near-instant 5-1 lead in Game 2.
Bayfield certainly had the edge serving as Foutz eventually crushed game point against an AHS block. The Moose (19-2, 8-0) had swept their first game against the Wolverines this year, and Bayfield seemed intent on revenge.
"In the first two sets I thought we came out really strong," Foutz said. "Because we weren't afraid and.believed that we could do it, believed that we could win. But throughout we just started making mistakes, getting in our heads, and kind of spreading apart and not working together like we did at the beginning."
Threatening to bring Tuesday's action to a swift halt, BHS took a 2-1 lead in Game 3 via a Foutz ace, upped it to 6-1 after Kudelski spiked an Alamosa overpass, and looked in total control at 10-3 before Carpenter got on serve. She continued serving until a Kudelski kill brought Bayfield-suddenly trailing-back to 13-11.
Terene Foutz called time when the Moose lead reached 16-11. The Wolverines answered with an 11-6 surge and briefly moved ahead, AHS' confidence was sky-high and ultimately produced a 27-25 win.
"After Game 2.you start back at zero, every game, and they just played well as a team," said Ullery.
After the game, Kudelski addressed Bayfield's breakdown: "We were like, 'Oh! Now they have five points on us.o.k., now they have six points on us!' And we started getting nervous in our heads. If we would have just kept to the way we were in the first two games, it would have been ours."
Third-ranked in the Oct. 26 CHSAANow.com Class 3A poll, behind only #1 Eaton and #2 Greeley University, Alamosa resumed work with a 3-0 burst beginning Game 4. Bayfield responded, but having turned the match into something more to their liking, the Mean Moose were up to the challenge and took the lead for good at 15-13, en route to a tiebreaker-forcing ace by senior Elise Tolley.
"Bayfield has great players.I just really think it came down to heart," said Ullery. "And these girls really do not want to lose.younger kids look to fill those shoes and be like those players. That's huge in a program."
Alamosa's Chloe Bolt rose to stone Foutz 1-on-1 for a 5-1 lead in Game 5, and Coach Terene Foutz alertly took a timeout. But after AHS junior Shannon Cody downed a kill, sophomore Kylee McCoy netted a swing and Bayfield then committed a lift violation, she had no choice but to use her second-and final-timeout down 9-2.
But Alamosa was too far gone. Tolley hammered a kill, regaining serve at 13-8 after Kudelski tried re-energizing the locals with one last wallop on her adopted home court.
"It was the last home game for me," she said of the shot, "so I'm thinking about it.it was still 'the end' and I needed to just play my game."
Still with very much to gain before postseason play, the Wolverines will head out east to Monument this weekend for Saturday's Palmer Ridge Invitational in El Paso County.
"We're going to have tough practices-I know that for a fact!" said Kudelski, who was yellow-carded during the clash along with Maddi Foutz. "We can't separate now that we lost. And it was big, but we need to focus now on these next games because they're all big for us, and we need to play how we were at the beginning."
