Lady Rams sweep Demons

Portales volleyball coach Ruth Chavez looks at the Lady Ram’s district schedule as a new season, and Tuesday night, the Portales girls started the second season with a strong win sweeping Dexter 25-12, 25-15, 25-16.

“We look at the district season as kind of a second season,” Chavez said. “We kind of start 0-0 again, is how we see it.”

Chavez described Tuesday night’s contest as the Lady Rams’ best performance of the season.

“It was important,” Chavez said. “We were all ready today and very focussed and I thought everybody played well. It was a great team effort. It was important to start out good, because we are trying to figure out a way we can bring this district championship to Portales, so we don’t want to mess up along the way.”

The Portales coach also had high praise for how her girls played defense — which has been an area in need of improvement, according to Chavez.

“Our defense flowed really well and it just looked good. (They) looked very confident,” Chavez said.

“I think I finally have the right people in the right places on defense. They’re starting to learn their positions better and reading the hitters and working more as a team.”

Despite the one-sided result, Chavez explained that the Lady Demons are a much improved team over last year’s squad.

“Dexter was 9-1,” Chavez said. “We weren’t sure what we were going to face. They have (improved). They’re a little more experienced team and they’ve improved.”

It may be hard to imagine that the Lady Rams could catch anybody by surprise, but Chavez believes that may have happened Tuesday night.

“We played so well that I think we caught (Dexter) a little off guard,” Chavez said. “Urgency was there for all of us because it’s important to start off strong.”

The Lady Rams take a break from their District 4-3A schedule Thursday with a match at Artesia.