The Bayfield Lady Wolverines beat Montezuma Cortez in straight sets on Tuesday night.
Bayfield (4-11 overall, 2-4 in 3A Intermountain league play) took a 3-2 lead in the first set and never lost the upper hand. Despite expanding their lead to as great as 17-10, the Lady Wolverines found that the Lady Panthers (2-13, 0-6) weren’t about to concede. A kill by Montezuma-Cortez’s Delta Suckla made it a 23-21 first set, but Bayfield took the opening set thanks to a Evelyn Hollibaugh shot off M-CHS’ block, then an Avery Shipman ace clipping enough of the end line to be ruled in play.
The Lady Wolverines took control early in the second set with a kill by Kambrie Byrd, but Montezuma-Cortez didn’t make it easy and pressed Bayfield coach Terene Foutz to use a timeout. Katie Killinen came back with a kill abd paired with Byrd on a scoring block to get Bayfield restarted.
Killinen’s hardest kill shot of the night increased BHS’s lead to 14-9, and she followed it up with an ace. A Byrd cross-court kill later put Bayfield up 23-13 to secure the second set.
Killinen effectively got BHS out of the lengthy slump by holding serve for seven points early in the third set – the last being an ace which hooked down, skidded off the near sideline and into their opponent’s bench area – and putting the home team, for all practical purposes, out of visiting Montezuma-Cortez’s reach.
Killinen’s next serve sailed long, but after M-CHS’s Tessa Jackson served an ace, Barber countered with a kill shot, and the Lady Wolverines set about rebuilding their advantage to 20-7 before Lady Panther coach Skylar Robinson decided to use her second and final timeout.
After M-CHS scored a point, the Lady Wolverines responded with a kill by Hollibaugh and an ace by Shipman. Killinen soon tallied another kill to make it 23-9, then Barber and Tanna Owens put the match away with the Wolverines’ final two points.
