By Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
The Lady Tigers hosted the West Las Vegas Lady Dons Monday night in Tiger gym to begin the first round of district tourney play in District 2-AAA Volleyball.
The Lady Dons winless in district play traveled up I-25 to Raton, the next higher seed, in District Two to begin the cascading district bracket. As the match began Vegas kept the score close and even took the lead a few times giving Raton a run for their money. With the score tied at 22 in game one it was a toss up that could go either way. A surprise to the Lady Tigers since they won the earlier matches with West by three. Game one turned out to be the fluke game that woke up the Lady Tigers.
As game two got underway it looked as though West was going to make Raton really earn this win as they kept the score close until about midway through when Raton began to pull away with strong play at the net behind Ginger Baird, Kerrigan Weese, Jadyn Walton and Aliana Garcia. With the game tied at nine Raton began to pull away and extended their lead 18-13 before going on to win the game by 10.
Game three was a different game all together as Raton took the early lead and never looked back. Again the ladies at the net met the challenge with block after block that feel for Raton points. Walton and Baird also played the set perfectly and created Raton points on the spikes that found the holes in the Lady Dons defense or were so strongly hit that they glanced off the arms of the Lady Don players. Raton went on to put this one away by a 15 point margin.
As it is the best of five, game four started out like game two with a tie at 6-6. Raton however found the groove and began to pull away quickly taking on a 10-6 lead then on to a 24-12 lead before putting the ribbon on the game and match by 12.
The Lady Tigers will now travel on to Santa Fe Prep for the next round of tourney play. Robertson and St Mikes played Monday night as well with St Mikes winning that match 3-0 to take the first place win in District 2AAA. St Mikes and Robertson were tied at 9-1 for first place and played the tie breaker for the district title. Sant Fe Indian and Santa Fe prep round out District 2AAA.
WLV 25 15 10 13
Raton 22 25 25 25
