BROOMFIELD — Holy Family volleyball wasted no time showing why it’s ranked among the top 10 teams in Class 4A, especially when Mead started to make a comeback in a 3-0 home victory on Tuesday night.
In the first two sets of the 25-19, 25-20, 25-18 sweep, the Mavericks rallied on set point to truly test the 10th-ranked Tigers, but the home team managed to hold them off to keep the sweep intact. That kind of mental fortitude is something the Tigers have been working on, especially after suffering a tough loss to Thomas Jefferson on Friday.
“We’ve talked all season that our goal at the beginning was just to put out the most competitive team that we possibly can each match,” head coach Jenna Gallas said. “What we’ve really been focusing on lately is putting in the work to make sure that that competitive nature stays no matter what the scoreboard says.”
The Tigers, bolstered by a strong front-line offense and defense, improved their stock to 11-6 on the season and 5-0 in league play to stay atop the Northern Colorado Athletic Conference. The Mavericks, on the other hand, fell to 8-9 and 5-1 in league play to drop down to second or third — that position hinged on the Windsor-Centaurus Tuesday result.
Mead, for its part, has seen some growing pains this year through a tough schedule after losing a strong senior class last year.
“A lot of different people have had to step up, including me, I think,” Mead junior outside hitter Isabelle Zuniga said. “It’s been a rude awakening for some of us and I think some of us are doing really well under the pressure. We’re just figuring everything out right now. I have a lot of confidence in us in the future and, especially, next year.”
The Tigers began the match riding a bit of a high as they built up a 19-7 lead and quickly found themselves within striking distance of victory. The Mavericks, however, wouldn’t make it that easy on them.
Throughout the rest of the first set, Mead systematically chipped away at that lead and, when the score read 24-14 in Holy Family’s favor, ignited a rally that fell short at 25-19.
The second game followed much of the same pattern, but the Mavericks didn’t let the Tigers put them in as much of a hole. Down 24-17, they put together a smaller rally before Holy Family put them away 25-20.
“I saw that in the end of the (first) two sets, we started to actually play like ourselves and actually compete,” Mead head coach Mikayla Martinez said. “I think that we started out slow and that got us into a hole that it was difficult for us to dig out of, but we saw glimpses of the way that we play and what our potential is.”
The Tigers decided they wouldn’t be fooled three times, so they took control early and maintained it in the third set before finally putting an end to any type of Maverick comeback with a 25-18 final score.
Now, the Mavericks will look to battle for the top two spots in the league when they host Windsor on Thursday as Holy Family tries to put together another win streak when it travels to Greeley West on the same night.
“I think our blocking and offense have been the strongest part of our game this year. We have a huge wall up there and a lot of our hitters just swing,” Holy Family senior outside hitter Morgan Anderson said. “Mead is our biggest rival, so it feels really good to beat them and come back from a hard loss last week and just come out and play like we did tonight.”
