Portales volleyball getting back into action at Roswell

The Portales Lady Rams got a week’s worth of idle time, and coach Ruth Chavez is hoping it will help them turn the corner.

After a stretch that saw Portales (2-4) play five matches in nine days, the Lady Rams have been idle leading up to today, when they head to the Zia Classic in Roswell.

“I think we needed the week,” Chavez said. “We changed up a lot of things, added some different things and it’s been a good week for us.”

The Lady Rams are playing in Roswell, where the state tournament will be held eight weeks from now. The Lady Rams, who took fourth in last year’s Classic, are in Pool D with Santa Fe, Hobbs and Hot Springs this year.

The tournament includes Clovis, along with District 4-3A opponents Ruidoso and Lovington.

All pool D games will be played in the auxiliary gymnasium at Goddard High School. The top two finishers in each of the four pools will advance to the championship bracket at Goddard, with the bottom two finishers competing in the consolation pool.

The Lady Rams have beaten Artesia in sweeps for each of their two wins, but have fell victim to what Chavez called mental errors, and shaky passing.

“We’ve been passing better,” said sophomore Morgan Hill. “We’ve been working hard on everything, but we’ve worked really hard on our passing.”

Hill said the team has played well in scrimmages at practice, but admits that it’s not a perfect measure of how Portales will do against other schools.

Regardless of how they do in pool play, Portales’ first match in bracket play will be at 7 p.m. against a team from the Pool A field — which includes Goddard, Los Alamos, Ruidoso and Silver.