MHS, who competed in four matches, began the day being one-out-three teams playing in pool play for a chance to earn their way into the cross bracket which could lead them to the district 8 championship bracket.
(Pool play has four teams that all play each other and the team with the best record advances to a championship bracket)
  
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Up next for MHS was a game against Palisade. The Lady Indians defeated them in three sets, 25-19, 25-20 and 25-21 finishing undefeated through pool play. With their two victories the Lady Indians advanced to the cross bracket semifinal match against Cortez.
MHS head coach Shane Forrest was pleased with her teams play through their first two matches
“Pueblo East was a match we knew couldn’t overlook,” Forrest said. “In that third set they gave us quite a run and played scrappy volleyball, but we were pretty confident going into that match that we would get the victory.”
Against Palisade, the Indians continued their dominance and with their victory over the Lady Bulldogs advanced to the cross bracket semifinal match against Cortez.
“We really didn’t know what to expect with Palisade,” Forrest said. “They are are much improved team and they didn’t make it easy for us to walk away with that win.”
But the Indians did get the win and a short rest before they squared off with Cortez.
In semifinal match The Lady Indians opened that set with a 25-15 victory and looked as though they were going to run away with the victory, but the Lady Panthers didn’t back down and defeated MHS in the second set 25-13. That would be as close as they would get as the Lady Indians went on to win the final two sets 25-20 and 25-19 to advance to the finals for a showdown with Class 4A powerhouse Mullen.
“We definitely knew Cortez would be tough,” Forrest said. “Cortez played the best that I’ve seen them play all season. But luckily for us our kids recovered from that loss in the second set and came back and took control.”
As the tournament drew to a close, the much anticipated mach up against Montrose and Mullen was now in the forefront.
Unfortunately for the Lady Indians the Lady Mustangs proved too be much and dominated Montrose in all phases of the game. Mullen swept Montrose defeating them 25-16, 25-17 and 25-17. With the loss the Lady Indians still qualify for the regional tournament next weekend, since they finished as one of the top two teams.
Leading the way statistically for the Lady Indians on the day was senior Courtney Geesing, who led the team with 58 kills. She had 18 errors on a 125 attempts while recording a 32 percent hitting efficiency on the day. Senior Kelsie Dardis was second on the team with 35 kills, while junior Brittany Berry added 21 followed by senior Jori Ayers 20. Sophomore Kyla Kille had a team high five aces. Defensively Maranda Ryser led the team with nine blocks, while Geesing was second with seven. Emma Cooling had a team high 72 digs, followed by Ayers who had 69 digs and Geesing’s 65.
Up next for Montrose is a trip to the regional tournament next weekend. As of now, the Lady Indians are in the dark on where their going to be seeded. But what they do know is that there are 16 teams that advance to regionals, with four regional sites with four teams at each site.
For Geesing and her teammates, it’s important that they work hard this week and be prepared to face anybody.
“We just have to keep working hard and continue to work on placing the ball better and covering,” she said, “and if we do that, we should be fine.”
Rick Edmondson wrote on Nov 1, 2009 2:39 PM: