BAYFIELD – The Bayfiled High School volleyball team wasn’t as sharp as it usually is, but the Wolverines were still plenty good enough to get a win on senior night.
The Wolverines shook off a slow start during the first set and rolled to a 25-22, 25-12, 25-10 victory against Montezuma-Cortez on Tuesday night at BHS.
For much of the first set, Bayfield lacked intensity and struggled to get mentally checked in after the senior night festivities.
“There’s a ton of emotions and all of that stuff going on,” Bayfield head coach Danica Frost said. “I thought we started off a little slow and were playing a game of ping pong, but I’m happy it finally picked up.”
In the second set, Bayfield got back to its dominant self. The Wolverines jumped out to an early lead, built the advantage to 10 points at 15-5 and maintained a double-digit lead nearly the rest of the set.
The third set played out almost identically as the second. Bayfield took control early, built a double-digit lead and coasted to the win.
A big difference between the first set and the second and third sets for Cortez was the loss of Aryelle Wright, who tweaked her knee at the end of the first set and didn’t return to the court.
“I thought we did extremely well in that first game. One of our stud outside hitters Aryelle Wright kind of tweaked her knee on that last game point, landed on it kind of funny,” Cortez head coach David Robinson said. “When she came off she said, ‘Coach, it doesn’t feel right.’ At that point it was kind of a punch trying to figure out who can go where and what we can do.”
Robinson said he thought the Panthers handled the situation well without Wright, but her presence at the net was missed.
Prior to the start of the match, Bayfield honored its five seniors with a short video.
When the match got underway, senior Jade Pascale, who suffered a torn ACL earlier this season, took the court and delivered the opening serve, which found the floor for a point.
“It was really cool. I didn’t think I was going to get that point, so that was a surprise,” Pascale said. “It was just amazing to be on the court one more time with all my friends. It was really cool.”
The plan to start Pascale came from the senior. Frost said Pascale asked if she’d be able to take the court and serve to open the match. After talking it over, and getting clearance from the BHS trainer, who watched dozens of serves from Pascale to make sure she wasn’t putting too much pressure on her injured knee, Pascale was given the OK.
During the last four years, Bayfield has compiled an overall record of 69-23, and even though the five seniors were varsity starters for all four of those years, Frost said they made impacts during each of those seasons and replacing them won’t be an easy task.
“Oh, gosh. I don’t think you can put a value on that,” Frost said, referring to what the seniors have meant to the program. “Most of them played on varsity since their freshman or sophomore year. Definitely having them leave the program is going to start that process over again.”
Cortez won’t have to wait long for another shot at the Wolverines, as the Panthers will host them for a rematch Saturday.
It was a special night for the Bayfield High School boys soccer team with a 4-2 win against Pagosa Springs.
Senior Tilden Berriman scored three goals on senior night to lift the Wolverines. He scored in the ninth, 16th and 57th minutes. Marcus Isordia, another senior, opened the scoring with a third-minute goal for BHS (9-3, 7-3 3A Intermountain League). Senior goalkeeper Chad Winkler earned the win in goal for the Wolverines.
Pagosa Springs (2-10-1, 2-7-1 IML) received goals from Jason Monterroso on a penalty kick in the 23rd minute and from Tate Hinger in the 46th minute.
BHS will travel to Bloomfield for a match at 4 p.m. Friday before returning home for a crucial league game at 3 p.m. next Tuesday against Crested Butte.
kschneider@durangoherald.com
