Lady Panthers split league matches

M-CHS beats Centauri, falls to Alamosa in tri meet
Montezuma-Cortez senior Skylar Robinson sets a ball in the Panthers’ season-opening win over Ignacio. Robinson had 35 assists in M-CHS’ win over Centauri on Saturday.

The Montezuma-Cortez volleyball team opened last Saturday’s tri meet in La Jara with a 3-1 win over the Centauri Falcons.

M-CHS won the first set 25-19 before falling 25-23 in the second to even things at one. But then the Lady Panthers won games three and four in extra points, with 26-24 as the final score of both.

Danielle McDonald led the team with 14 kills and Rylee Lindsley finished with 13.

Lindsley also added 23 digs in the match and Skylar Robinson tallied 35 assists in the win.

With the tri-meet format, M-CHS got right back at it after the win, matching up against the Alamosa Mean Moose.

Tyra Pinnecoose finished with a game-high 6 aces, McDonald tallied 7 blocks and Robinson racked up another 25 assists in the contest, but Alamosa senior Shannon Cody led the Mean Moose with 17 kills as Alamosa won in four games (25-15, 19-25, 26-24, 25-9).

“The girls played hard, but it is a difficult weekend to play eight games in one day,” M-CHS head coach Dave Robinson said in an email. “I am not a fan of the back-to-back games due to the physical and mental exhaustion the girls have by the end of the second match. All teams have to deal with it, but it is still difficult to train for.”

After going 1-1 on the weekend, Robinson described the positives he saw from his squad.

“We had different players step up and showed extremely well,” he said. “Rylee Lindsley had a great weekend hitting the ball and finished with 18 kills in the two matches, Danielle McDonald finished with 22 kills for the weekend, Tyra Pinnecoose finished with 14 kills and Aryelle Wright came in with 11 kills.”

The Lady Panthers (5-10, 2-4 3A Intermountain League) next host Montrose (8-4, 2-1 4A/5A Southwestern League) on Friday and then travel to Olathe (1-8, 0-1 3A Western Slope League) on Saturday.