Bulldawgs bite the bears
Volleyball – La Cueva vs Las Cruces Game Recap
In a much anticipated showdown. The two volleyball titans of New Mexico faced off Tuesday night. The #1 La Cueva Bears and #2 Las Cruces Bulldawgs played at La Cueva High School.
In set one, Las Cruces came out hot getting an early lead. They held off a late La Cueva run to take the set 25-21.
Set two, the Bulldawgs picked up right where they left off jumping out to a quick 10-5 lead. They continued with that momentum the rest of the set, winning 25-10.
La Cueva found their mojo and traded points with Las Cruces in set three eventually pulling away for a 25-16 win.
Set four, the Bears got a decent lead, 14-9, which led to a Bulldawg timeout. Las Cruces came out of the TO and rallied back to within one point but the Bears pulled away again. The Bulldawgs then proceeded to rally back, stalemating La Cueva at 23 to win the set and the match.
“They’re so good, they are such a tough team.” [speaking about La Cueva]
Ainzley Doolittle, Las Cruces Senior Libero #3
Senior Libero for Las Cruces, #3 Ainzley Doolittle: “We’ve been looking forward to playing them because they are so good, they are such a tough team. We’ve played them a couple times before and lost. So it feels good.”
Las Cruces head coach, Keith Leupold talked to us about La Cueva’s talent, how proud he was of his setter, and Las Cruces’ mentality in the game. “They [La Cueva] are good team, they aren’t going to lay down and die. Karyna Werley runs a great offense. They are just solid. They have Tea, Victoria. We felt like there were things that we could do to score against them. And we ran those things pretty well too. I was very pleased with my setter, Sydney Pipkin. She’d really never set before this year, she had back surgery in January…and she’s really come in and done a great job for us. We returned everybody from last year but our setters. So that was going to be a question mark going in but she did a great job running our offense today.”
“Trying to win it. Not waiting for somebody else to drop a game…that is the thought process we went through.”
Keith Leupold, Las Cruces Volleyball Head Coach
When asked about the last set comeback rally coming out of a timeout Coach Leupold told us that he wanted his team to go after it. “I just wanted us to be aggressive, you know the tendency is to lighten up on your serve, not be aggressive. And that is what we talked about after that last time out. Trying to win it. Not waiting for somebody else to drop a game…that is the thought process we went through.”
These two teams will be in the thick of things come playoff time and could very well end up facing each other in the NMAA 5A State Championship for the second year in a row.
The Bulldawgs are the top volleyball team in New Mexico now. They have a match up with Cibola at home on Thursday and then come back up north to play against Rio Rancho on Saturday before heading into district play. La Cueva will travel south to play Centennial on Thursday before starting district play against West Mesa next Tuesday.
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