After tracking the standings of the Colorado High School Activities Association’s Rating Percentage Index (RPI), the Montezuma-Cortez volleyball team is calling it a wrap.
The Lady Panthers ended the 2016 season with a senior night win over Monte Vista to finish with an 8-14 record – an improvement from last year’s 4-18 performance.
But with the team sitting at No. 43 in the RPI standings as of Thursday and with the Class 3A Regional Tournament seeding just 36 squads, head coach Dave Robinson made the tough decision to shut things down.
“We’ve been watching it all weekend, but just had that reality on Monday that even with a four-game swing it’s not enough point movement for us,” he explained. “We’re sitting at 43rd and we’d have to jump quite a bit to get in, so we decided to call it.”
While Robinson said the team is prepared to play if something crazy were to happen that leads to the Panthers being slotted into the postseason bracket, he doesn’t foresee it happening.
M-CHS finished the season with 37 players and was able to fill a varsity, junior varsity and two C teams, which Robinson was pleased with. He also spoke highly of the way his teams worked hard and competed this season.
“I consider all that a success this year,” he said. “Not only the schedule, which was nice with our record, but the overall feeling from the girls that were excited for volleyball and glad to be around each other. Things like that were kind of our coaching goals this year, to help them remember that it’s a game, it’s a fun game, and they should love the game.”
The Panthers will lose four players from this year’s squad to graduation, but with high participation numbers and after taking a step forward in the win column this season, Robinson is excited to continue building the program, saying they’re already planning a 3-on-3 league, weightlifting and events the upcoming summer.
“We’ll give them a little bit of a break, but probably after this next season we’ll start them back in the weight room,” he said. “And we’ll have a summertime program laid out for them so that they can continuing playing volleyball so that each year is a little bit better.”