The Dove Creek Bulldogs came out with intensity against the Mancos Blue Jays on Tuesday.
Kiera Baughman and Savannah Ayers served up aces to take an early 5-2 lead, and kills by Shelby Fullmer and LaRissa Martin extended it.
The Blue Jays were getting the looks that they wanted, setting up players for spikes, but they couldn’t convert. Hits sailed out of bounds or went directly into the net, giving Dove Creek easy points.
Mancos’ Taryn Gordanier and Morgan Rose tried to spark a comeback with consecutive kills to bring the score to 17-7 in Dove Creek’s favor, but the Bulldogs closed it out, winning game one 25-14.
“We had a brilliant start we felt,” said Dove Creek head coach Melissa Carver. “If we could’ve kept that momentum I think we definitely would have come out on top. Little errors, little mistakes that obviously got in our head.”
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, after game one, Mancos won three straight, fueled by the excellent play of Nicole Hess and Dove Creek errors.
In the second set, Fullmer blocked a Gordanier spike to save a point, then later spiked it in herself to give the Bulldogs a 6-2 edge.
But the Blue Jays fought back to even the score at nine, and Jessica Gutierrez dropped a shot into open space to give Mancos the lead.
That’s when Mancos junior Nicole Hess took over.
Hess slammed in a spike to give the Blue Jays a 13-11 advantage, then after a Dove Creek rally, she powered in three consecutive kills for a 16-14 lead.
Hess began serving with the score at 17-15 and she lead the Blue Jays to eight consecutive points and finished out the match for a 25-15 win.
“When she’s on, she’s on,” Mancos head coach Brittney Lang said of Hess. “She has such knowledge of the game. She reads really well, and she not only watches the ball, but she’s starting to watch players. And when you watch the player instead of the ball it makes reading so much easier.”
Hess’ excellent play continued in the final two games, and the Blue Jays rallied around her, with Gordanier slamming in multiple spikes for kills to take game three 25-12 and the final set 25-10.
Dove Creek and Mancos each have one regular season game remaining before postseason play, with the Bulldogs hosting Ridgway on Friday.
“Basically what I told them is to believe in themselves to believe in each other as a team and to look forward to our next game and to come out playing hard,” Carver said following Tuesday’s loss.
Dove Creek then travels to Olathe for the district tournament.
Mancos on the other hand, has yet to secure a postseason position.
The Blue Jays final regular season game is on Tuesday against Norwood, and with only five teams in their district and four teams slotted for the district tournament, they will play either Telluride or Dolores for the final playoff spot.