Vixens roll to Region B championship

FORT SUMNER — Leslie Wood passed to her left. She passed to her right. Sometimes she even passed behind her. But the senior Fort Sumner setter almost always put the ball in the right position for teammates Kayla Britain, Tobea Patterson and Sandy Fortner to pound at Cimarron time after time.

Wood notched 29 assists and Britain, Patterson and Fortner all recorded at least 10 kills as the Vixens crushed Cimarron 25-13, 25-8, 25-12 Friday in the semifinals of the Class 1A Regional A tournament.

“It’s like we’re not individuals. We’re one for all,” Wood said, crediting the Vixen backline with good feeds off the serve.

The win also allowed the Vixens to clinch a berth in the State Tournament.

Fort Sumner (20-3) capped off the weekend with a 25-14, 25-23, 25-21 sweep over Des Moines Saturday in the Region A title game.

“We weren’t mentally as strong as we were last night,” Fort Sumner coach Lisa McMath said after the Des Moines match. “We had a lot of mental mistakes and we have to take care of that before state.”

Wood had another 29 assists while Patterson knocked down 14 kills and Britain 13 against Des Moines, the three-time defending state champion.

Up one game, the Vixens trailed 13-8 in the second. But Fort Sumner came back to win and went on to take the third and deciding game.

Fort Sumner never trailed Friday night, even though McMath and Wood said the Vixens were a little nervous at the beginning of the first game, when the two teams went back and forth on the first eight points. The Vixens then scored the next five points and never looked back. Fort Sumner jumped out to a 15-4 lead in the second game and closed out the match with a 10-2 run in game three.

The Lady Rams (11-9) had difficulty matching up with Fort Sumner’s jumping ability, leaving a lot of open kill tries or kill tries with only one blocker up front.

“It’s like I always say, if you play a lot of defense, you lose,” Cimarron coach Zack Romero said.

The Lady Rams were successful when they had kill tries, but Romero estimated they were outhit by the Vixens by a two-to-one ratio. The Lady Rams had trouble passing up to the setter off the Fort Sumner serve. Lady Ram junior Leslie Barmann had six kills, with Elizabeth Romero adding five.

Romero said he still believed the Lady Rams were one of the best eight teams in the Class A.

“Unfortunately, we had to play one of the best teams in the state in the first round of regionals,” he said.