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Digging for a cause

BHS girls thump Pagosa, remember friends

Happily hastening her approach to the service line in Game 4, sophomore Sydney Gabbard knew a major victory Tuesday night was close enough to taste.

And with ball in hand awaiting the official's Proceed! whistle amidst a deafening BHS gymnasium crowd, she held the fork to test whether or not visiting Pagosa Springs was truly "done."

"Yeah, I wanted it so bad," she laughed afterwards, her attempt at a clinching ace stopped by the net. "And I knew I'd tossed the ball way too low and tried.. But I guess I couldn't get it."

However, destiny had an even better ending in store for Bayfield. On the next exchange, senior Brooke Kudelski walloped a kill, locking up a 20-25, 25-18, 25-14, 25-13 triumph over her previous team at BHS' Pink Digs for the Cure 2015 event, kicking off National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

"It meant so much more than just a point," Kudelski said of her punctuating shot. "It meant everything. Because of Pink Digs and how Terene (head coach Foutz) was talking at the beginning-I didn't know the two girls, but it meant something to me-and playing an old rival.it's just great."

The "two girls" remembered were former player Samantha McClure-recognized at last year's event with a framed jersey given to her father and then to Bayfield High School itself-and young Aria Crane, who had passed away in early May after fighting Hodgkin's lymphoma for three years.

Her mother Wendy (herself a Wolverine during the late 1990s) accepted an honorary pink No. 1 jersey in her memory from current juniors Maddi Foutz and Miranda Talbot before the action began.

"It was amazing," said Gabbard. "You saw the emotion in everybody-I think it was what they needed. It broke everybody down, and it.put a new air on the game."

"Presenting that, and following through with what we're saying-how there's a donation and all that kind of stuff-I thought that was unbelievable," said Kudelski. "I was really blessed, honestly."

"If she wasn't a Wolverine before," Terene Foutz said of Kudelski's view, "she's got to be now!"

"It felt so weird, seeing someone in my jersey!" she admitted, of then lining up against ex-teammates in a 3A Intermountain League match. "But I was like, 'This is good.just a volleyball game.'"

And in the end the Pirate now donning Kudelski's former black-and-gold No. 10, junior Addie Thompson, ended up becoming an exploitable target for the Wolverines (6-8, 2-1 IML). Hurried onto the court from Connie O'Donnell's bench when Megan Farrah wracked her right ankle early in Game 3, Thompson-who'd serve long on game point-did her best but lacked the junior regular's chops.

"We still went hard and everything; I didn't think the loss was a big deal for either side.we both kept strong," said Gabbard. "It didn't change things that much; we weren't going to take it easy on them because they lost one of their star players."

And in Game 4 the Wolverines showed no mercy in completing a full about-face from their Game 1 loss, and did so much as the Pirates (12-5, 2-2) had done-with outstanding serving-in the first verse.

Three of Maddi Foutz's five aces and sophomore Courtney Bayles' stuff of PSHS' Madi Lewis keyed a sizzling 9-0 start, pressing O'Donnell into a timeout which paid no great dividends as BHS inflated their advantage to as great as 18-6 on the strength of serving by Foutz, Gabbard, and sophomores Ashley Mottin and Kylee McCoy.

"We knew they were really strong servers," said Kudelski, tipping her hat to the Game 1 work of Springs' Faith Alhardt and Morgan Lewis, "and we knew that the game would be a serve-receive-serve-receive kind of game. And whoever was strongest would win."

At the outset, that appeared to be Pagosa Springs. Allowing Bayfield to come no closer than 19-18 after having firmly controlled the match to that moment, PSHS took Game 1 when Foutz hit long out of the back row.

"Our energy was so high that it didn't even matter," said Mottin (8 kills). "We were still playing good. Our crowd and us.we were all really pumped, and we've had a few losses so we really wanted the win."

Game 2 was much more back-and-forth as BHS came alive fully, and took their first convincing lead when Mottin mashed a kill for a 15-11 lead that grew to 22-13 on a Kudelski ace. Bayfield finished seven points ahead when McCoy (8 kills) placed perfectly a two-handed freeball into a deep corner after the guests had avoided game point a nerve-testing four times.

With junior libero Emily Bauer racking up several of her team-best 12 digs, Bayfield bolted out to a 12-5 lead in Game 3 and again put O'Donnell on the defensive after a McCoy ace increased the Wolverines' lead to 20-13.

"It got your heart pumping!" said Gabbard, of BHS' service skill which produced a reported 15 aces. "You saw it in their eyes that they were like, 'This is mine.' Kylee did amazing; every time she went to the line we were like, 'We're getting six points now.' Like, automatically.it was amazing."

"All season it's been kind of hard to actually finish through, and so we were so proud of ourselves," Kudelski said. "We were just like, 'Wow! We're doing it-we're going to actually finish a game!'"

Up next, Bayfield travels east into the San Luis Valley for a Saturday showdown in La Jara with Centauri.

"Playing for Aria and Sam.it's a good time!" Mottin said. "We're going to bring the energy from this!"

"Now that we have this win under our belt we know that we can do it," said Gabbard. "I think we've got a new fire and it will be a good game."

"I'm sure their gym is going to have a bunch of energy," Kudelski said. "I think we feed off the energy-with our 'Rowdy Crowd,' we feed off it-and even if it's an opposing one I think we're going to do awesome."