The Colorado High School Activities Association released the regional volleyball brackets on Monday and local high schools are preparing for postseason runs in their respective classes.
In CHSAA’s Class 4A, the No. 24 seed Durango Demons (13-10) are heading to Cheyenne Mountain High School for Saturday’s regional.
The Demons are grouped with the No. 1 seed and regional host Cheyenne Mountain (21-1) and the last seed, No. 36 Weld Central (14-9).
The Demons have won six of their last nine matches and come in having won two in a row.
“We’ve been getting better all season and we’re playing our best volleyball right now,” said Durango head coach Colleen Vogt. “Looking at the projections, I had a feeling that we’d go to one of the top few seeds which means that we have the opportunity to do something special. We’ll have fun, bring high energy and our best game to them and see what happens.”
With 11 of the 13 first place votes, Cheyenne Mountain is the clear cut No. 1 Class 4A team in the state and Durango will have its hands full with the home team.
The Indians haven’t lost since Sept. 19 and they recently delivered perennial powerhouse Lewis-Palmer its first loss since 2013.
The lone blemish on Cheyenne Mountain’s record was handed down by the top Class 3A team in the state, Eaton High School which has a perfect 20-0 record. Since then, the Indians have run off 14 consecutive wins with 11 of those lasting only three sets.
No. 36 Weld Central is coming into the regional riding a three match win streak. Neither Durango or Cheyenne Mountain can afford to overlook the Rebels as they finished third in the Colorado 7 conference with a 10-4 record.
Bayfield High School
Class 3A’s No. 17 Bayfield Wolverines will travel to Manitou Springs to face the No. 8 seeded Mustangs (17-6) and the No. 29 Brush High School Beetdiggers (6-17). The regional begins at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Led by Maddi Foutz and Brooke Kudelski, Bayfield (12-11) has come a long way since the beginning of the season. The Wolverines’ young squad started the 2015 campaign 2-5, but head coach Terene Foutz has done a fantastic job getting her girls on track. At their best, they can and have challeneged the top teams in their class.
They had the No. 4 seed Alamosa team on the ropes last Tuesday before squandering a 2-0 lead, but that’s part of the learning curve of a team with only two seniors. They also beat the No. 12 seeded Pagosa Springs Pirates twice this year.
Regional host Manitou Springs was a perfect 12-0 in winning the Class 3A Tri-Peaks League.
Like Bayfield, the majority of their losses came from 4A competition. The Beetdiggers are heavy underdogs in the region. They’ve lost their last five matches by a combined score of 15 sets to none.
Ignacio High School
The Ignacio High School volleyball team went 15-7 overall and 11-1 in the 2A/1A San Juan Basin League this season, and drew a tough region in the 2A CHSAA regional tournament. The No. 8 Bobcats will play in Region G where they will face No. 7 Ridgway and No. 6 Paonia.
In the regular season, Ignacio split its series with Ridgway (21-1, 11-1 league) winning 3-2 on September 19 in Ridgway, but lost 3-1 to the Demons to end the season on October 31. In that meeting Ignacio was without one of its leaders in sophomore Shoshone Thompson who was out with a concussion.
This will be the first meeting against Paonia (19-4, 11-1 2A/1A Western Slope Grand Mesa League), which not only finished first in its league, but 12 wins in a row to end the regular season.
The combined record of all three teams is 48-8.
The Bobcats are led by Thompson who led league in service aces with 101 and was second in league with 363 assists. Junior Alex Forsythe filled in nicely when Thompson was out as Forsythe finished the year with 80 service aces, which was second in league.
Senior Miel Diaz finished the year with 54 assists. Junior Kelly Campbell will be a force on the nets in the postseason. Campbell finished the regular season with 158 blocks, best in league. Senior Ellie Seibel followed Campbell with 94 blocks, which was second in league. Junior Shiegh Pollock rounded out the year with 67 blocks.
“Paonia will have good fundamentals,” said Ignacio head coach Thaddues Cano. “It’s going to be an intense battle this weekend.”
Cano added that he needs his squad to play with better serve receptions to get his hitters on the ball.
“Everything will fall into place,” Cano said. “I think we can win the tournament outright.”
In four seasons as head coach of the Ignacio Bobcats Cano is 39-49.
