Featuring four NCAA Division I recruits, Lewis-Palmer High School showed fans and foes attending last Saturday's L-PHS Invitational a roster built to destroy.
As fate would have it, Bayfield - finally playing its first match this fall - got first crack at the 2015 Class 4A State Runner-up (and State Champion in '14 and '13). Lewis-Palmer is off to an undefeated start in 2016 at home.
"We're playing the No. 1 team?" junior middle Kylee McCoy laughed after the day in Monument, recalling the team's reaction to its initial Pool 'A' inclusion with the top-seeded Rangers and 4A Niwot.
"It was a little difficult, but ... Lewis-Palmer's the tournament that starts our season, and we come here to play our hardest," McCoy added. "We don't come here to expect to win; we come to learn, and I think that it's a great start! Having that huge offense slamming at us ... it's nice to see that because we pick up stuff from them to bring to our league."
"It was really good to get a taste of what a championship-level team looks like," agreed senior Maddi Foutz, following a 15-25, 11-25 loss to the eventual invite winners, in which the Wolverines managed to get as close as 13-9 in Game 1. "It was good for us to play ... under pressure; back home, sometimes, we don't get that."
"Later in the day when we started calming down and playing like ourselves, we did really good."
Showing improvement in an 11-25, 20-25 loss to Niwot, BHS at last booked Win #1 by bettering 5A Broomfield 25-21 and 25-18 - the last point via a perfect no-look dump over the net by sophomore reserve setter Tymbree Florian. Given a chance at a respectable fifth-place finish, Bayfield took full advantage and trounced 4A Loveland Thompson Valley 25-10 and 25-17 via vicious serving led by juniors Sydney Gabbard and Courtney Bayles, and hitting fueled by Foutz and junior Jade Pascale.
"We knew that it was going to be tough," Pascale said, "and we needed to give it our all. We started waking up in the second (against Niwot), started to find ourselves. It's a good experience, honestly, and I wouldn't want it any other way...that's what we're going to have to play at State."
After all was said and done, there was a strong sense of readiness packed with the gear for the ride home.
"I wish we could see them (Lewis-Palmer) again in, like, two weeks," Foutz grinned.
Indeed, the Bayfield L-P saw briefly was the Bayfield which Aztec saw fully Tuesday.
Overcoming a Game 3 resurgence by the enemy on "Whiteout Night" inside BHS Gymnasium, the as-yet unranked, but contentedly anonymous Wolverines scored a solid 25-14, 25-19, 25-22 sweep, punctuated by a pulverizing Pascale put-away through the visitors' middle on match point.
"I think what you saw tonight was a translation from the off-season, in that these kids really invested a lot," said Head Coach Terene Foutz.
"Their parents were behind them all the way, and many kids got 35, 40 volleyball matches before summer! So they're uninhibited, ready to see where the dice fall! They're going to compete!"
"Lewis-Palmer, first match out of the gate, was the hardest it was going to be," she continued. "These kids are OK with taking chances. They're willing to risk the error to get the hard-drive kill, so we're going to swing a lot! Last year they were trepid; this year, they know better. They've learned and I'm really happy."
However, no one in the building may have been happier than Gabbard.
Relieved by simply being able to play in 2016, a visit from her maternal grandfather - out from Morongo Valley, Calif. - was the nitrous-oxide boost in her engine, enabling her to burn AHS (3-3, 0-0 NMAA Dist. 1-5A) with five of the team's 15 aces during a crowd-thrilling six-point service run starting Game 2.
"No clue," said Gabbard, asked if she knew of her relative's arrival. "He's had some medical problems, my other grandpa just passed away, and I haven't seen him since that happened. He's been supporting me over the phone, and being able to see him in person, it's just such a blessing to have him here! So of course I wanted to play good for him, show him that he was here for a reason."
"At first I accidentally served the libero, and she shanked it," Gabbard added.
"So I realized that could be my target; once you knock the libero out, the whole team kind of loses their defense. That was my goal."
And once the Tigers began breaking, every white jersey wanted a piece. Pascale (9 kills), McCoy and junior Ashley Mottin fired regularly from the middle and Gabbard and Foutz (11 kills) from the antennae, while senior libero Emily Bauer and senior Miranda Talbot anchored BHS' back-row defense.
Freshman reserve Mavis Edwards provided two key sparks off the bench with a kill off Aztec's block to clinch Game 2, and a vital ace for a 20-18 lead late in Game 3 - when the home side mostly trailed until a Foutz kill and Bayles ace inflated Bayfield (3-2, 0-0 3A Intermountain) a promising 16-13 pad.
"We were all working together, and sometimes we lack - especially in the mornings - having a lot of energy and just being focused and dialed in," said Maddi Foutz, paralleling BHS' three early wins.
"But then again, we also didn't make a lot of mistakes on our side of the net. We had a lot of energy and we were all really into it."
"This year, we have most of the same girls, and so we're a much more mature team," she noted.
"And having a lower ranking gives us the opportunity to sneak up on people because they won't be expecting us."
"Playing those bigger teams we got a taste of what it could be like, to be state champions and everything," Bayles said. "So we just applied what we think we need to do to win each game. We just came with all our intensity and I think it intimidated them."
"The tournament definitely helped us, like, warm up and figure out what we were doing," Mottin said.
"But this home-opener was just great. This year we're coming back to show who we are."
Up next, Bayfield will welcome Montezuma-Cortez (2-5, 0-0) and Centauri (4-0, 0-0) for an IML triangular tomorrow before beginning a four-match road run Tuesday at 6A Piedra Vista High School in Farmington.
