The Battle Mountain High School varsity volleyball team competed at the White Pine Invitational this past along with five other varsity teams.
In pool play, the Lady Longhorns played five matches consisting of only two sets with scoring to 25 points, capped at 27. Battle Mountain had an extreme case of nerves for their first set against Owyhee losing 25-16. The Lady Longhorns came back to beat the Braves 26-24 in the second set.
The next match was against Lincoln County and Battle Mountain split equally with the Lynx. The Lady Longhorns won the first set 26-24 and dropped the second by the same score.
In the third pool play match, Battle Mountain met up with White Pine and lost 25-15 and 25-19.
“White Pine is playing very tough volleyball right now,” said BMHS coach Sondra Torgerson. “They have a strong front row in both hitting and blocking. If we pick up our confidence and improve in our skills as I believe this group of girls will do then our homecoming match against them should be very exciting.”
At the end of a long day the Lady Longhorns faced Tonopah and lost 26-24 in set one, and easily beat the Muckers 25-13 in set two. The last pool play match was Saturday morning against Wendover and the Lady Longhorns were victorious in both sets 25-21 and 27-26.
In the double elimination tournament, the matches were the best two out of three sets with each set to 15 points.
Battle Mountain came out strong against Lincoln County and won the first set 15-8, but coach Torgerson said the girls walked across the net and fell apart. “If our serve reception was good, then our setting and hitting was off; or vice-a-versa,” Torgerson said.
Lincoln County came back to win the final two sets 15-7 and 15-8.
“The frustrating part for me was that we took ourselves out of the match mentally and I could not get them to respond,” added the coach. “This is the struggles that we will have at the beginning of the season because we are new to each other. Hopefully, the leadership of the six seniors will fix these type of problems in the future.”
After losing to Lincoln County, Battle Mountain dropped to the losers bracket and lost to West Wendover in two 15-11 and 16-14.
The overall statistics for the weekend included, aces —Yulisa Vazquez 14 with seven of those against Tonopah. Sammi Wilson had seven aces, Liscet Diaz six, and McKenna Jones, Jonni Davis and Drue Domagala three each.
Battle Mountain had 33 kills over the weekend, with 10 of those against West Wendover. Marissa Rogers led the squad with 14, Jones had seven, Vazquez and Isabella DeAllah six each and Diaz five.
Vazquez and Domagala had 49 and 11 assists, respectively, and Riane Schroeder had a team-high seven blocks. DeAllah and Vazquez each with three blocks and Jones had two.
“Overall, for our first outing I’m not too worried,” Torgerson said. “For the most part our serve receive was strong and that is huge. I just hope that our fans see improvement each and every week.”
Battle Mountain is hosting is hosting its annual invitational this weekend with 13 teams competing in the varsity bracket and 9 in the JV bracket.
The varsity will play at 9 a.m., noon, 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Friday. The Lady Longhorns finish their pool play at 9 a.m. and noon on Saturday.
Those matches will be played in the high school gym.
Battle Mountain is back under the direction of coach Torgerson back at the varsity level, while Lisa Bullock will coach the JV team.
The 2016 BMHS varsity team will consist of 13 players. The six returning seniors on varsity are Jonni Davis, Liscet Diaz, McKenna Jones, Riane Schroeder and Yulisa Vazquez.
Also, returning to the team are junior Marissa Rogers and sophomore Grace Melver. The juniors new to the team are Hania Amezcua, Sarah Berumen and Jade Smith. There two sophomores new to the team are Isabella DeAllah and Drue Domagala.
Coach Torgerson said that the varsity team has worked very hard in the first couple weeks of the year.
“They seem focused and want to have a successful year,” Torgerson said. “We have not set our team goals for the season, but my own goal for this year is to get this team to the zone tournament once again.”
The 2016 BMHS JV team will have 13 on the team as well. The returning players are Marbella Diaz and Alexa Goddard (both juniors), Alma Chavira, Sarah Jimenez and Julia Ramirez.
There are eight freshmen on the team in Lilly Conder, Alma (Isabel) Diaz, Kaylee Narramore, Kynndra Penson, Carlee Petersen, Mariana Rangel, Kira Smith, and Uliana Willingham. Elizabeth Rosas will be one of the managers for the teams.
