Ignacio volleyball head coach Jennifer Seibel was scared after seeing her team play in the summer.
Seibel, a former Ignacio High School volleyball player, knows that Ignacio has always been the underdog. The Bobcats have always been undersized and are a small school, with 206 students in the entire high school in 2023-2024.
So, when the Ignacio volleyball team went to Farmington in the summer to compete against quality competition, Seibel saw the potential of her team. She saw a type of energy and connection among the girls that she hadn’t seen before. When she returned to Ignacio, she knew the team could be great.
Therefore, Seibel was excited about the potential of her team, but also nervous and scared. She was nervous and scared about her team plateauing too early in the season. So she wanted to push her girls to be tough, resilient and give everything they had.
It turns out, Seibel’s nerves and how she’s pushed her team have paid off.
At 19-4 overall and 11-1 in the 2A/1A San Juan Basin League, the Bobcats just finished their best regular season in at least 15 years. Ignacio won nine of its 10 final regular-season games, with its only loss in that span coming against 2A’s No. 5 team, Dolores, a team Ignacio defeated earlier in the season.
The Bobcats are very balanced on offense, with five players over 110 kills. What’s scary for the rest of 2A is that none of those players are seniors.
“It's never been that balanced in the three years that I've been coaching,” Seibel said. “We are pretty versatile with our threats offensively. We've got a range of pins who can swing … we've got a threat from every spot on the back row and front row. My setters are really good at distributing the ball and seeing the defense and the blocking … if someone is having a hard time, we have multiple options to go to.”
Seibel has a special connection with her team this season; she’s been coaching the majority of the juniors on the team since they’ve been in sixth grade. It’s been fulfilling for Seibel to see them grow and push them to become better young women.
It’s been a symbiotic relationship for Seibel and her players. It’s her third year as the head coach at Ignacio and she’s learned to listen to her players more to get their buy-in. She knows if they feel good and empowered, they’ll play better.
Seibel knows she doesn’t know everything about volleyball, so she’s always willing to listen and learn from her players and coaching mentors like Durango’s Kelley Rifilato or Bayfield’s Terene Foutz.
Two of Seibel’s leaders and coaches on the court are junior captains Lainee Bradley and Kelley Sirios. Before the team’s last win against Sargent on Thursday, Bradley was second on the team with 144 kills. Sirios was fifth on the team with 114 kills and first with 546 assists.
Bradley, an outside hitter, is the team’s boisterous, go-getter type of leader, while Sirios leads by example in silence, according to Seibel.
Sirios has been on varsity for three years. She’s always been the setter and she enjoys controlling the game and switching the tempo when needed.
“It's been pretty nice because in the past, we've only had one or two options,” Sirios said. “Having four to five girls, it sure has been really nice because I've been able to spread the ball out and it's been easier to get kills that way.”
Fellow junior Tarah Baker is another key part of the team as Ignacio’s libero. It’s her third year on varsity and as a libero, she enjoys the intensity of the back row.
Baker and Sirios both said the team’s cohesion is one of the reasons for the team’s success. The girls are all best friends, in addition to most of them playing together since middle school.
The trio of Baker, Bradley and Sirios played together last year on Ignacio’s squad that made it to the postseason and lost in regionals. The Bobcats were underdogs as the No. 24 seed in the bracket, playing in No. 1 Simla’s regional. Despite Ignacio taking the familiar role as the underdog, Sirios said the team wasn’t humble enough in the regional and it cost them.
After losing in regionals last season, the Bobcats got some needed reinforcements. Sophomore Alleah Neil and junior Reggi Gustafson transferred into Ignacio, meshed with the returners seamlessly and helped the team tremendously.
At 6-foot-1-inches, Neil led the team in kills before the final game and has given the program the height it has rarely had. Gustafson has emerged as one of the Bobcats’ best options and was third in kills before the final game against Sargent.
“Alleah has helped us so much with blocking and hitting,” Bradley said. “For her first year on varsity and coming out and rocking it, it's amazing. Reggi went to Bayfield and she has some club experience. She's a very good player. She reads the ball so good and she has a really high volleyball IQ.”
Even with the addition of Neil and Gustafson, the team lost its underdog mentality at its first game of the season against Montezuma-Cortez and lost 3-1. Seibel saw her team was overconfident and knew that game humbled them and brought them back to reality. After that, Ignacio went 19-3 and swept 14 of those opponents.
Now, the Bobcats are on the precipice of hosting a regional for the first time since Seibel has been the head coach. The Bobcats have been to the postseason and have finished with a winning record every year since 2021, but Ignacio will have to play with the heart and fight Seibel knows Ignacio is known for. The Bobcats work in the offseason and their underdog mentality will be tested as the potential host of their region.
“We just want to compete,” Seibel said. “It doesn't matter where we are. We're going to come in with the mindset of we’ve got to fight from here on out. It'd be great to host in our own gym, but it doesn't matter where we're going. We're ready to fight and keep our focus on the match and not the location.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
